Rock My World Canada, chapter 81: Ray Condo
[Mike Carr is determined to create a catalogue/reference work featuring all kinds of Canadian rock and alternative releases from the past few decades. Check out his a massive volume on Canadian music history entitled Canadian Alternative & Indie Reference and Collector’s Guide. It’s an incredible discography of hundreds of bands. – AC]
Ray Condo (May 16, 1950 – April 15, 2004), born Ray Tremblay, was a rockabilly singer, saxophonist, and guitarist. Condo taught himself to play the guitar at 11 and by the time he was 16 he had co-written and released his first recording, ‘If You Only Knew’ with a band in the style of the British invasion called The Peasants.
He left for Montreal to paint for a year, but once again got caught up in music, getting together with bassist Clive Jackson, banjoist Chris Dean, violinist Edgar Bridwell, guitarist Eric Sandmark, and drummer Peter Sandmark to form a band called Ray Condo and his Hardrock Goners, named for Hardrock Gunter, an early rock and roll musician. In 2003, Condo suffered from a minor heart attack.
A year later, new band member Ian Tiles found Condo dead from a heart attack in his Vancouver apartment.
Find out more about this artist and hundreds of other Canadian artists in the softcover edition of Canadian Alternative & Indie Reference and Collector’s Guide. Get your copy here. Follow Mike on Facebook and Twitter.
