Ray Bennett

Music:

Member Since: 07/08/2007
Band Website: raybennett.co.uk
Band Members: Ray's career has included collaborations with: Phil Collins (Genesis), Tony Kaye (Yes), Peter Banks (Yes), Colin Carter (Flash), Mike Hough (Flash), Nicky Hopkins (Beatles, Stones, Rod Stewart), Keith Carlock (Sting, Steely Dan), Sidonie Jordan (John Stewart, Ike & Tina Turner), Jan Akkerman (Focus), Andrew McCulloch (King Crimson), and many more.
Influences: The BBC, 50's & 60's pop, big bands, the Salvation Army Marching Band, hearing a bass guitar for the first time, hearing (and seeing) a Fender Strat for the first time. The Sputniks, Alvin & The Chipmunks, Television, Skiffle, Radio Luxembourg, my Dad's piano playing (old standards, Beethovan, show tunes), the church organ my Dad brought home, my uncle Bill playing bluesy harmonica, my cousin Geraldine playing the accordian, singing English folk songs at school, hymns at church, English pub songs, my Aunt Beat's 78' record collection of 30's and 40's music and her wind-up gramaphone, the smell of vinyl long players, our family's first Radiogramaphone, my first music teacher Mr Bane, ("Mr Brain", as we called him) Charles Dickens, my sister's records - Elvis, Cliff Richard & The Shadows, The Everly Brothers, The Beatles......they blew our minds and made me want to be a Beatle too - my old friends Stu Murray, Pete Skinner and Bill Bruford in my first real band - "The Breed", Blues of the raunchiest kind, jazz if it was from the heart and not the head, Beethovan, Vaughan Williams, Eric Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Mingus, Joni Mitchell, Buffalo Springfield, The Doors, Tim Hardin, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, John Mayall, The Graham Bond Organisation, Jack Bruce, Cream, The Spencer Davis Group..............Anything that glowed with originality, energy, harmony, warmth, humour, quirkiness, brilliance and invention.
Sounds Like: Ray Bennett