Ray Croce - Guitar, Keyboards, and Vocals.

Ray started taking piano lessons when he was 6. First, from the Sisters of Saint Joseph and then from Mrs. Vagnoni. When he was 9 Mrs. V wouldn’t teach young Ray what he wanted to learn but instead taught him “Beautiful Dreamer” he quit. He wanted to be a Rock and Roller so he started to teach himself some chords on an old Harmony acoustic guitar that was his older sisters. When he was 14 Ray decided to learn to play the bass. He had observed that in his neighborhood there were a great many guitar players, several drummers, and even a few piano players but no bass players so he worked at his brother-in-law’s corner store and saved enough money to buy a bass. His father, Nick was a really good stride style piano player. Every once in a while he would sit down at the piano and tell Ray to go get his “Slap Fiddle”. He would play bass lines with his left hand and make Ray find the patterns on his bass. Ray got a chance to play in a few bands. As he got older and discovered the opposite sex he knew that playing bass lines to a girl would not win her over so he went back to the guitar and his dating life became a lot better. Fast forward a couple of decades when Ray was playing guitar and singing with another band that was in search of a bass player when in walks Bill Belgard. They hit it off right away and when that band dissolved Bill reached out to Ray to play in a band he was putting together. That band would become known as “The Old Man Garage Band”, OMGB.

It started out with a friendship and has become a family.