Ray Ellington

Ray Ellington has a last name that would seem to make him a natural part of the American jazz family, but in reality his background was quite different, and his major claim to fame would be most appropriately described as "something completely different." Although a hardworking part of the British jazz and rock scenes of the '50s and '60s, the African-born drummer, vocalist, and bandleader is known to most listeners as part of the auxiliary cast of The Goon Show, a madcap radio series that ran on the British Broadcasting Corporation for a nearly a decade beginning in the early...