Biographical Information

Ray began playing the guitar at an early age.  After emigrating to the United States from his Native Jamaica in 1971, at age 13, Ray had his first encounter with the guitar while in Summer Camp in Connecticut during July of the summer of 1972.  It was love at first sight, or at least first hearing.  The sound of the acoustic guitar was not a common thing in Jamaica and Ray just couldn’t get enough of it.  By the time he returned from Summer camp that year, and got his first guitar, a sort of plastic affair that cost all of nine dollars and ninety-five cents, Ray had already learned to play one song (“Today”, the traditional hymn) on the instrument.  During that summer, Ray also fell in love with the music of the Beatles. 

Ray had his musical education on the guitar in attendance at Febbraio School of Music in Mount Vernon, New York, where he spend most of teen years. Ray also studied music at Anderson College (now Andersen University) a school well-known for it’s music program, where he was for a time a member of the jazz band.

Since then Ray has played in Jazz and Rock bands and have been the guiding hand behind many students with whom he has had the pleasure of being associated over his teaching career. 

Ray began offering guitar lessons in Northern New Jersey, in the Fall of 1998,  moved his teaching practice to New York City in 2004 and in 2009 re-established his practice in the Fleetwood neighborhood and in 2010 founded Avenue Music Room on Fourth Avenue, in the downtown area of  the City of Mount Vernon.