Raymond O. Hartley

Raymond Hartley Obituary

1925 - 2014
RAY HARTLEY, OAM

Ray Hartley OAM, pianist/songwriter, died peacefully November 15, 2014 in NYC at the age of 89. As a leading performer at New York's finest New York supper clubs in the 1960s to 1980s, Mr. Hartley romanced audiences at the Waldorf-Astoria's Peacock Alley, the Savoy Hilton, the Sheraton-East, the St. Regis-Sheraton, the Carlton House, the St. Moritz, the Americana, and the Helmsley Palace. His elegant keyboard styling was described by The New Yorker magazine as being "like a good extra-brut Château Lafite, thoroughly refined and poetic, yet always effervescent."

Born in Kellerberrin, Western Australia, he received his first piano lesson at age 7, began winning solo competitions at age 12, made his radio debut at 14, and at 17 introduced his first Ray Hartley instrumental trio at the Esler-McMorrow Ballroom in Perth. After doing service in the Royal Australian Air Force he moved to Sydney where he became pianist/arranger for popular orchestras and resumed his classical studies with renowned music authority Nancy Salas, MBE. Upon receiving his diploma at the Sydney Conservatory of Music he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music. As a popular guest artist on British radio, his first published song, "Let's Do It Again," became an international hit, followed by "Welcome Home," written especially for Vera Lynn, famous WWII British vocalist. In addition to his piano and orchestral works, Ray accompanied and conducted for such performers as Terry-Thomas and singer Sam Browne on radio and TV and on concert tours. Before leaving London for NYC he was honored to give a Royal Command Performance before Queen Elizabeth and The Royal Family at the Victoria Palace Theater.

In New York Ray became a sought-after audition pianist for Broadway musicals. It was there he caught the eye of RCA Victor Records, who signed him to a long-term recording contract. His first mood-music albums-The Trembling of a Leaf; For Lovers; and Darling, He's Playing Our Song-became best sellers. He composed the score for TV musical special, Portobello, co-authored with Hollywood and TV screenwriter Blanche Hanalis (Little House on the Prairie.) His song "Peanut Butter and Jelly Time," is featured in the score of the hit U.S. TV series Family Guy.

Mr. Hartley was a member of the Musicians' Union Local 802 and ASCAP. A longtime member and past board member of the American Australian Association, he was honored with their prestigious Terry Magill Award and Order of Australia for his fund-raising concerts in the United States and Australia (American Red Cross, the American Theater Wing, NYC's National Arts Club, hospitals, and other philanthropies. His concert at the Sydney Opera House in 1994, helped raise the initial funds to build Australia's first children's hospice, Bear Cottage.)

He is survived by sisters, Shirley Shaw and Thelma Glynn, nieces and nephews, their families in Australia, and friends all over the world. A memorial celebration is planned in New York on April 23, 2015. Contact:[email protected]

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by New York Times from Apr. 6 to Apr. 7, 2015.

Memories and Condolences
for Raymond Hartley

3 Entries

Nancy Bradford

April 27, 2021

In loving memory of a wonderful person. We will love you and miss you always. Your sensitivity & compassion for those less fortunate or talented is an indelible memory.

Turning your head and smiling at me. . . .

[email protected] . . . . Patt Anderson

May 5, 2016

Love Requiem for Ray Hartley

It's too late now. You've left.
My Life kept getting in the way.
All these years, decades, your music has hypnotized me, sustained me.
Now, I, too, am an old lady.
And it's too late to tell this to you in person, as I had dreamed.
Whatever cosmos you are in now, you will know, anyway,
despite Life taking you away.

It must have been around 1960 when my mother purchased
The Trembling of a Leaf and The Sound of the Sea LP.
The yellowed price sticker in the corner is marked 3.50 and 6-59.
On the cover, is the giant concert grand, seemingly placed on a moonlit beach,
beside a slender tree, with the moonlight dancing on its narrow leaves.
The shimmering sea beyond the piano.
And the dashing young pianist with his tails draped over the back of the Bench was you.
Turning your head and smiling at me.

While the other kids my age were listenng to Elvis, the Everly Brothers and Chubby Checker,
I was listened to my parents music, Mantovani, Percy Faith, 101 Strings.
Never did understand why I was different.
At this age, my mother contracted with Mr Manifredi to give me accordion lessons,
on a beautiful Hohner accordion. I hated practicing, hated the accordion. It was a waste.
Other people's music was much more beautiful to listen to.

The album was RCA Victor LSP-1659.
It was played so many times, one could almost read through the vinyl.
My engineer father had built a fabulous stereo system
in our home in the Republic of Panama. The Garrard record changer was top of the line.
A dozen albums could be stacked on the spindle. It was mounted on commercial drawer
hardware, so it gracefully slid out of the cabinet horizontally.

Growing up in Panama, nine degree's north of the Equator,
we were surrounded by pristine beaches,
probably much like those in Western Australia. Or the beach with the concert grand.
On weekends, we drove to Playa Santa Clara, staying with an old woman in her beach house.
Genell was more a grandmother to me than my own faraway relatives. She had never married,
but had worked for Elizabeth Arden in Paris, during the time of Hemingway and Steinbeck.
She had lived a fully romantic life and was very happy and contented.
She kept us in line, but blessed us with her wisdom and guidance,
helped me learn the importance of happiness in old age.

In the evening, we kids went down on the abandoned beach
to build huge bonfires from driftwood, collected earlier in the day,
between swimming and avoiding sunburn.
The fires were so huge, they were visible from miles away.
Invariably, drawn by the flames, the GIs who had temporary duty assignments at a Base
a mile down the beach, joined us for hot dogs and marshmallows, thrilled to talk to teenage girls
who spoke English and who reminded them of their younger sisters back home in the USA.
While I sat in front of the glowing embers, warm, happy and mesmerized,
I listened to The Trembling of a Leaf and The Sound of the Sea. In my head.
There were no recording devices in those days.
(Battery-powered transistor radios were just coming into being,
but one listened only to what was broadcast.)
Ray Hartley and the LP were fifty miles away at home.
I listened to him, just the same. Against the roar of the surf.
The music was engraved in my heart.
So staring into the flames, I heard Ray Hartley caress the keys to make those melodies.
Hundreds of times. Hundreds.

A grand day in our household was when my father bought a Wollensak tape recorder. Reel-to-reel.
I recorded four solid hours of The Trembling of a Leaf and The Sound of the Sea on 3M reels of
recording tape, so I no longer had to get up to re-play the record.
Maybe despite being played millions of times, the album wouldn't die after all.

The last cut on Side 1 was The Dawning of Love, written by Ray Hartley.
It WAS the dawning of love for me.
In the music I heard the breeze fanning out the sails and the waves washing over the hull.
Always smooth and silent, moonlit sailing.
A sailboat was necessary to fulfill Life, to ease the aching caused by this music.
In my senior year in high school, I dated an older guy who had a one-third partnership
in a forty-foot sloop. I was invited for a sail once. Life was complete !

Later that year, in 1966, when I left home to go to college,
I carefully carried Ray with me. Ray Hartley always went wherever I did.
Perhaps someone there had a record player....
After dropping out of my only year of Architecture (due to intense gender discrimination),
always moving THE record album with me, I traveled across the Eastern USA, piece by piece.
Until a year later, that husband was assigned to West Germany for his first duty station,
as a second lieutenant in the US Army Corp of Engineers.
So I lived with Ray Hartley for five years, three towns in Germany,
with three progressive men, until two of us returned to the USA.
That was the time of VietNam
and everybody had incredible stereo systems. I listened to Ray Hartley a lot then!
Even recording equipment evolved. From reel-to-reel, to 8-track, to cassette.

Many years have passed.
I am an old woman now.
Thousands and thousands of Joys over the decades.

California. A career in the dawning of the computer age,
a family, a home on a hillside.
Fulfilling The Dawning of Love, a sailboat even!
Electronics evolved more. CD, DVDs, iPods, computers.
On eBay, two replacement copies of the precious, but sadly worn,
Trembling of a Leaf and The Sound of the Sea LP were found;
and were mostly untouched after an initial recording.

Up until then, with only this record album to sustain my music,
until then, when all this progress occurred,
Ray Hartley could only be music to worship and to manifest happy memories.
Then, on the dawning internet, I wrote a brief internet review of my glorious album.
Apparently, somebody, acquainted with Mr Hartley, sent me an eMail about him.
Said Mr Hartley now lived in New York City.
Our son was in college at Columbia University in New York City!

So in my fantasy, I imagined this Love Letter to him.
Planning to someday meet him, to take him to lunch at his favorite restaurant,
and to explain to him how his music had affected and polished my Life,
how I worshipped his melodies, his lilting piano.

And yesterday, I finally looked up Ray Hartley Piano on google.
Sadly, achingly, I found Ray Hartley - Obituary.
A year ago. Probably when we were visiting Columbia U.
Now I can never tell you how much you brightened my Life and made it romantic.
How many wonderful memories, how many delicate melodies, you made in my heart.

But your Spirit will know this. Wherever you are.

The Trembling of a Leaf and The Sound of the Sea.
The yellowed price sticker in the corner was marked 3.50 and 6-59.
On the cover, was the giant concert grand, seemingly placed on a moonlit beach,
beside a slender tree, with the moonlight dancing on its narrow leaves.
The shimmering sea beyond the piano.
And the dashing young pianist with his tails draped over the back of the Bench was you.
Turning your head and smiling at me.