Ray Vanderby recently passed away, and his death sent shockwaves throughout the Australiana music community. All across his Facebook page, an outpouring of lamentation populated the comments, which you can see by clicking below and browsing the page in general.

It was a heavy blow to us all… But there’s a silver lining: a brand new music video for Ray’s last album, Comet Ride.

We’re distributing the video everywhere, and though we’ll never really know, we hope dearly that it would have lived up to Ray’s hopes and expectations for the project.

Providing some insider insight on this video comes its creator! We received this message from Mr DeRooy and we figured it would make for some good behind-the-scenes trivia for diehard Ray fans out there in Australia and across the world:

‘Hi,

My name is Henry DeRooy and I have been working with Ray on his music videos for Funky Space Music and Ranchero, we had been working on his final video from the Comet 2 Comet album but as Ray has now passed away, we did not get to complete it.

When I first started working with Ray, he told me that there would be three music videos that he would like made for his new album, Funky Space Music, Ranchero and Comet Ride. He had pretty much directorial control of Funky Space Music and Ranchero, but told me to have some fun with Comet Ride so I did, but Ray being the perfectionist he was liked what he saw but wanted to make some changes, “More comets” he said, “imagine you are riding a comet though space..”

So, comets added, aliens added we just needed to add the final touches, which we had planned to do once the weather warmed up, unfortunately this was not to be.’

It’s unfortunate that the lads weren’t able to get it all polished to 100% of what they would have liked it to be. But between this and the music videos for Ranchero and Funky Space Music, we’ve got plenty of Ray Vanderby to be getting on with for the time being. While it’s sad he won’t be making any more music or videos ever again, looking back on his work with the new context of the future and the good memories we have of him from throughout his life and career! Top it all off with his albums and music videos, and it’s like he never left…

Ray lives on through his music and is remembered fondly as an Australian musical icon. He will be sorely missed by all of us at Blue Pie and those close to him. Ray had been ill for some time with cancer, but for many years he has continued to fight the good fight and play his wonderful music, defying medical predictions and burning brightly right until the end of his days. Ray Vanderby will be deeply missed in the years to come, and all of us at Blue Pie were very privileged to know him and work so closely with him throughout the years. If you feel the same, please take the time to reflect on his musical accomplishments with us, as we bid him farewell… and for a musical life well-played, bid him “bravo”.