The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side. - Hunter S. Thompson
Never be frightened by those you assume have more talent than you do, because in the end energy will prevail. My formula is: energy plus talent and you are a king; energy and no talent and you are still a prince; talent and no energy and you are a pauper. - Michael Levine
I come from a musical family. My father sang and
played piano in the tradition of Fats Waller. Both older brothers were players, one co-founding the popular Tulsa based
group Bill and Cliff in the mid sixties, and the other founding the LA-based rural-psych band Plain Jane in 1968 with Les Brown Jr. producing and playing drums.
My first cousin, Paul Ray from Dallas, Texas grew up with Jimmy Vaughan and formed the group The Cobras, which became
the first group 17 year old Stevie Ray Vaughan joined upon arriving in Austin in the '70's. I naturally grew up with a desire to sing and play. I learned harmony early on singing along with the Beatles and the Byrds. Even as a little tyke, I used to help my brothers figure out harmonies. I first took up the drums at age 6, trumpet in secondary school, then trumpet, drums and guitar in college.
I enjoy the creative process of song writing, vocal arranging and music production, and work out of my recording studio called "The Ray Ranch".
My last project was producing the "Songs For The Illinois River" compilation disc which is composed of original, mostly environmentally themed songs by 15 local artists. I recorded and produced 11 of the 15 songs on the CD. All proceeds are to benefit STIR (Save The Illinois River) in an effort to raise awareness and save the scenic Illinois River from further deterioration as the result of mega development and poultry farms chicken waste run-off. Be sure to check out the website http://www.songsfortheillinoisriver.com for bios, sound clips and producer's notes. CD's are available through the website as well as a wide array of local retailers.
New material forthcoming!
Blue Norther was recorded on a Tascam Portastudio 4 track cassette recorder and mixed to 1/4 inch reel-to-reel. Now if that's not old school! I played all the instruments and even manually thumped the Alesis drum machine as I'm too lazy to program it. I've got a real good video of this song with my old band Group Therapy performing at Broken Arrow's Rooster Days, with all the harmonies, keys and KILLER drums which I intend to put up here as soon as I figure out how to do it.
I've re-uploaded On The Wind and Someday for my new friends who have not yet heard them. They had about 1000 hits each when I took 'em down, but little by little, all this material will be replaced, as I'm throwing myself at my studio and have finally begun recording my backlog of songs. There's even some interesting Enoesque experimental/ambient synth stuff in the works! At some point I'll have all this material in CD form for release.
Recording the Songs For The Illinois River CD was fun, and I have a feeling that you'll be hearing some of those players on my new tunes, so stay tuned!
Peace.
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