Vibert Edmund Cornwall (born October 1938) is a Vincentian

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

singer known professionally as Ray King. He is the brother of Reginald Cornwall

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

. He is known for being a formative influence on the 2-Tone movement, originated in

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

, England during the late late 1970s and early 1980s. Vibert is a passionate supporter of Coventry's

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

and black ethnic communities and received an honorary doctorate of letters form

Coventry University , mottoeng = By Art and Industry , established = , type = Public , endowment = £28 million (2015) , budget = £787.5 million , chancellor = Margaret Casely-Hayford , vice_chancellor = John Latham , students = () , undergr ...

on 23 November 2010 in recognition for his volunteering and altruistic efforts. Vibert migrated to Coventry, England as a teenager from

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Vincent and the Grenadines () is an island country in the Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea wh ...

. He began singing in clubs across Coventry in 1966. It was around this time that Vibert adopted the stage name 'Ray King' after joining the band 'Suzi and the Kingsize Kings', at which point the band renamed to 'The Ray King Soul Band'.

References

Living people 1938 births People from Saint Vincent (Antilles) Musicians from Coventry {{Singer-stub