Reviews

Reviews of Dave Ray’s Recordings & Performances.

Bowie’s fine with the Cities, adores Koerner, Ray & Glover

Bowie’s first encounter with Minneapolis was through a 1963 Koerner, Ray & Glover album. In a recent story in Vanity Fair, the London-bred superstar cited the Twin Cities trio’s “Blues, Rags & Hollers” as one of his 25 favorite vinyl albums.

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Real Blues

“Snake Eyes” presents Dave absolutely solo on a fourteen-song set recorded last May. Always one of the premier twelve-string blues guitarists of the ’60s Folk Revival, he uses one throughout the performances here. Covering the likes of Arthur “Big-Boy” Crudup, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Percy Mayfield, Lowell Fulson, Peg-Leg Howell and others, “Snaker” gives a master class in how to play these songs alone, with a mixture of respect and inventiveness, never overpowering the song while playing the hell out of each one.

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Living Blues

Review of Dave Ray · Snake Eyes from Living Blues · The Magazine of the African-American Blues Tradition, July/August 1998: “This recently recorded set applies Ray’s seamless 12-string playing and smooth vocals to a set of standards from sources as diverse as Eddie Vinson (Person-To-Person), Muddy Waters (Blow Wind Blow), and Mercy Dee Walton (One Room Country Shack). Longtime fans will find Ray’s fire still burning brightly on an outstanding set.”

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Dirty Linen

Dave “Snaker” Ray is known mostly for being part of the legendary folk-blues trio Koerner, Ray, and Glover, a group that was highly influential in the 1960s. Ray is less well known for his solo work, although his own sporadic albums over the years revealed him to be one of’ the very best folk-blues artists extant.

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6L6 Blues Access review

6L6 Blues Access review by Kathleen Rippey: “As a blues singer, Ray is unmatched for his natural grace and slouching, sly wit. As a guitar player, his jazzy lounge style has evolved over nearly four decades from outstanding finger style country blues picker to a one-of-a-kind electric guitar master of his own pallet of odd chords and sophisticated rhythms. Ray is a real scholar of the blues and his repertoire is downright heavenly.”

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Bayfront Blues Festival

Dave “Snaker” Ray plays six and twelve string guitars, knocking out the houserocking boogies, up-beat rags, funky New Orleans rhythms and down-home country blues that have kept him in demand for nearly forty years. Dave Ray, with his partners “Spider” John Koerner and Tony “Little Sun” Glover, formed the legendary trio of Koerner, Ray and Glover in the early 1960’s where they were a driving force in the folk music revival.

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Twin Cities Blues Review

Review from Twin Cities Blues Review by Peter Lee: “In person or on record, Dave’s ringing twelve string is immediately identifiable in the first bar of the first tune, and his smoky, well seasoned, immensely believable vocals do more that just carry the words of his songbag’s blues classics, they actually tell a story, and not merely by rote. This is not an artist to be taken for granted – pay attention and you just might learn something about the music and about life.”

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