December 5, 2014: One of the first
white artists to study and learn the then little-known blues tunes from the 20s,
30s and 40s and part of the Minneapolis folk and blues revival that spawned Bob
Dylan, Dave "Snaker" Ray brought an enthusiasm and raw, raunchy
earthiness to his performance style which set the stage for artists that
followed. Koerner, Ray & Glover’s recordings were enormously
influential among their fellow musicians, with artists from David Bowie and John
Lennon to Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams and Beck citing them as an
influence. Ray's career, celebrated on Legacy, a three-CD
collection of rare and unreleased songs by the influential acoustic bluesman
painstakingly compiled by Ray’s longtime bandmate/collaborator Tony
Glover, will be featured on NPR WEEKEND EDITION this Sunday, December 7. The piece
will also be archived online at http://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-sunday/.
NPR's Jim Bickel speaks to Tony Glover
about Legacy, a 10-year-in the-making tribute to his friend and former
bandmate. The 55-song collection features a 32-page booklet with rare photos and
extensive liner notes and additional info by Glover. Legacy spans
Ray's career, starting in the 1960s in Minneapolis, MN’s West Bank neighborhood
with “Spider” John Koerner and Tony Glover through his subsequent
collaborations, solo albums and untimely death on Thanksgiving, 2002.
To me he was a brother from another family –
the family of sound. He brought a vitality to the blues that the scholars who’d
been on the scene couldn’t muster,” Glover says.
Along with live recordings and rarities, Legacy
includes selections from out-of-print recordings including Ashes in My
Whiskey (Rough Trade) and One Foot in the Groove (Tim /Kerr
Records). Unless noted, the tracks on Legacy are previously
unreleased and include performances taken from a wide variety of mediums
including reel-to-reel analog tapes, old sound board mix cassettes and live
broadcasts.
“Since Dave was doing Lead Belly and I was
working on my Sonny Terry riffs, people thought it would be a good idea to put
us together,” Glover recalls. “We both had very similar tastes in blues,
preferring the deep, down-home raw numbers. After the initial learning-by-rote
process we made a point of going for the feel of a song, trying to capture its
aura rather than doing a note-by-note cover.” It was a musical partnership that
ended up lasting four decades.
Since the album's release, the Twin Cities
declared November 9 to be Dave Ray Day; that evening, friends and fellow
musicians attended a sold-out tribute concert at the Minnesota History Center
which included a display of Ray's memorabilia, hand-written lyrics and two of
his guitars. The City of St. Paul held a street-naming ceremony on November 24
dedicating a stretch of Franklin Avenue as Dave Ray Avenue.
QUOTES
"Nobody has topped them for feel or drive or
humor or sheer affection for their folk-blues forebears like Leadbelly and
Memphis Minnie - four stars." - Rolling Stone
"As a trio, Koerner, Ray and Glover brought a
raucous, highly rhythmic approach to the acoustic blues that effectively
captured the essence of their forbears." - Playboy
"The instrumental work on here is just plain
awesome...and really puts up a case for them being reclassified from upstart
revivalists onto American roots music greats." - Folk Roots
(U.K.)
RED
HOUSE DISCOGRAPHY
Dave Ray
Legacy: Rare and unreleased recordings
1962 - 2002 from an American Blues Master (2014)
Koerner, Ray & Glover
Blues, Rags, and Hollers
(re-issue of the classic 1963 release with four bonus
tracks)
Lots More Blues, Rags, and Hollers
(re-issue of the 1964 classic)
The Return of Koerner, Ray & Glover
(re-issue of the 1965 classic)
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