Born Ray Tremblay in Hull, Quebec, Ray Condo grew up in a large family that loved country music. His first experience as a musician came in a Vancouver New Wave rock band, but by the mid 1980s he had moved to Montreal, and back to his musical roots. Ray Condo and his Hard Rock Goners started with Hank Williams and then moved on, performing rockabilly, jazz, blues, country and western swing with wild abandon and unabashed enthusiasm. In the early 1990s Ray returned to Vancouver, and joined with members of Jimmy Roy's Five Star Hillbillies (Jimmie Roy-steel guitar; Stephen Nikleva-guitar; Steve Taylor-drums) and Goners bassist Clive Jackson to form Ray Condo & the Ricochets. Though it would later lean towards rockabilly and honky tonk country, in the beginning this band was fully committed to a small-group western swing approach. Ray's vocals and the twin guitar and sax front line combined with a crack rhythm section to produce some inspired and swinging music, both on record and in live performance Ray Condo passed away on April 15, 2004 at the age of 53. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.