New age synthesizer player Ray is also known as Ray Leonard, a veteran Los Angeles-based recording engineer. The son of a minister, he grew up in various locations in Texas. He began singing in church at age six, took piano and violin lessons as a child, and got a guitar at 12. Soon after, he was writing songs. By high school, he was playing bass and guitar in a rock band. During a brief period in college at Washington State University, he took a synthesizer class that introduced him to the instrument. He then spent seven years on the road with the rock band Shadow. The group moved to Los Angeles and got their greatest recognition appearing in the horror film New Year's Evil (1981). But they broke up shortly afterward, and Ray became a recording engineer. He worked with such artists as Pat Benatar, Dio, Sammy Hagar, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Michael McDonald, Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, the Pointer Sisters, Quarterflash, Ratt, R.E.O. Speedwagon, Diana Ross, and Rick Springfield. After spending ten years in Los Angeles recording studios, he branched out into mixing sound for television, focusing especially on animated series, many based on feature films such as Aladdin, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Back to the Future, Buzz Lightyear, Gargoyles, Godzilla, The Hulk, Jumanji, The Land Before Time, 101 Dalmatians, Pink Panther, Spiderman, and Starship Troopers. This work earned him three Emmy Awards. At the same time, he continued to work as a musician and composer. He played in jazz and blues bands around Los Angeles and wrote the music for a documentary film. In 2001, he released his first album of new age "space music," Ethereal Journey, on his own Ray Leonard Records label.
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