BGS 5+5: Boo Ray

Name: Boo Ray
Hometown: Western Mountains of North Carolina
Latest album: Sea of Lights
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): “During the few-years span that I just couldn’t seem to stay out of jail, the other incarcerated guys that I gambled with on Spades and Tonk called me ‘Boot-a-rang.’ I didn’t ever bother to correct ‘em. In grade school, my very first band was also called Rhythm & Booze; it was a 4 piece band and Marshall Tucker’s “Can’t You See” was a feature of our set.”

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

Ahh that’s a cool question… Well, it might could be that Southern writers like Harry Crews, Ron Rash, and Mark Twain make me think it’s important to have a writing voice, and that there’s something powerful and magic about the just right combination of words used to tell the truth of our human experience.

I knew this guy everybody called Mr. Jack that ran a sawmill-–an old V-Twin Harley motor bolted to a 12″x12″ post frame and a great big 15-foot 2″ bandsaw blade that pitched and twisted so wildly when it ran that it just seemed impossible it could have ever made a straight cut. But it did cut 18-foot-long, perfectly straight slices off the huge logs he used to run through that mill. He’d cut some 1/4″ thin cedar for me to use as lining on chests. The way Mr. Jack cussed at and about his sawmill, the logs, the lumber and his equipment, expressed his passionate care, deep affection, forgiving humor and humble mastery of his industry. I suppose my affection for the way Mr. Jack carried on about his sawmill might be responsible for my cussin’.

My great buddy, artist James Willis, is constantly teaching me about perspective and how to use detail and lack of detail as creative storytelling devices. Sean Brock’s amazing passion, depth of knowledge, agrarian approach, his wood coal cooking and his completely inclusive use of information, style, technique, perspective and philosophy, have certainly influenced me.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

The point of the spear is compassion, inspiration and empowerment. I’m compelled to express to my fellow man that the troubles of life are not for nothing. The singer-songwriters that have moved me the most write songs that are part of the classic American songbook. So the purpose of my endeavor as a singer-songwriter is to land some songs, or a song, in the classic American songbook, whatever that is. I think that songbook includes songs by Lowell George, Leon Russell, John Hiatt and Fiona Apple. My favorite Grateful Dead record is the one that Lowell George produced, Shakedown Street. The word “Pop” ain’t necessarily blasphemy to me, unless it’s in front of the word “country”…

After writing the songs my mission is to perform the songs with my badass guitar-slingin’ band and build a dynamic, powerful and unique live sound around the character and nature of each of the songs. Live performance is more important to me than recording records, but I use the records as templates, stylistically, and to suggest possible arrangements. For me, the style itself demands that the records are exciting soundscapes, and experimental in the recording and engineering. If my records sound like someone else I’ve fallen short.

For me the singer-songwriter/guitar band-sound bar is set by acts like: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Little Feat, ZZ Top, Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives, any of John Hiatt’s bands (from The Goners and Little Village to his Trio), and Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit. So what’s my mission statement? I want to be Jerry Reed.

Boo Ray & Sean Brock

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I don’t spend enough time on/in the water lately. As a kid, I was at the river every week and in the woods all summer long. Sunrises and sunsets are important to me. I really tried to get up to my buddy Sean Minor’s for spring branding and spend some time roping, riding and working cattle this year, but had shows and sessions I couldn’t get out of. I like to do tractor work, eat homegrown tomatoes, negotiate the price of a late ’50s step-side GMC truck or dispute the shape of the taillights on a ’68 Chevelle while cracking pecans against each other, and get caught in a torrential downpour and soaked to the bone after doing some farm work.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

Agreed, and I totally dig a supper club-type show. How about Sean Brock doing some kind of Low Country spread with Ossabaw pork sock-sausage, rice peas, Geechie Boy Grits with a fresh catch, and some kind summer vegetables, with Billy Gibbons giving his take on Hill Country Blues. Billy and Sean are both great historians, passionate technicians and intuitive as hell. That’d be the dream pairing.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

The artists I like definitely seem to have character-driven numbers in their repertoire: Tom Petty’s “Break Down” and “American Girl,” Eddie Rabbitt’s “I Love a Rainy Night,” and Don Williams “Tulsa Time,” written by Danny Flowers. Those kind of songs hold you up as a performer and don’t require you to emote and be so intimate, at least for three or four minutes at a time anyways. Sometimes I might jokingly introduce “Redneck Rock & Roll” as a song that I wrote first-person as Kenny Powers. But I certainly do keep a few of those songs in my set: “I Got the Jug,” “Johnny’s Tavern,” “Six Weeks in  Motel”, even “Sea of Lights” is that way now, most of the time. There’ve been a few times that singing “Sea of Lights” made me involuntarily weep and cry…

On the “you”/”me’ thing; I saw this Mary J. Blige performance once, she was singing this devastated lovesick number and my heart was just broken for her, you know? Then in the last chorus, nothing left but ashes and pain, she flips the script on the “you”/”me” switch and starts singing “bye bye” and waving as she left, and I realized she was singing my blues, and she was the one that was leaving. I was leveled. It was like a damned magic trick she’d just performed. I’ve tried variations of that writing device in my songs “Constantina,” “Six Weeks in a Motel,” and the “Hard to Tell” collab with Lilly Winwood all have a moment where they pivot or twist like that a little bit.


Photo of Boo Ray: Courtesy of Sideways Media
Photo of Boo Ray with Sean Brock: Price Harrison

Way Above the Chimney Tops: A Pride Celebration of “Over the Rainbow”

As we celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride, let’s go “Over the Rainbow.” The amount of artists that have covered this song (written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg) is practically innumerable — and of course Judy Garland’s version from 1939’s The Wizard of Oz is the emerald standard. Yet we looked behind the curtain and found 10 roots, country, and folk-tinged versions that we think stand at the top of the heap. What’s your favorite version?

Eva Cassidy

This acoustic cover of “Over the Rainbow” made Eva Cassidy a star, but it didn’t happen until five years after her death in 1996 when a homemade video was shown on BBC’s Top of the Pops 2.

Willie Nelson

Why are there so many songs about rainbows? Willie chose Somewhere Over the Rainbow as the title of his 25th studio album, featuring 1940s pop standards, released in 1981.

Tommy Emmanuel

Officially released in 2004, Tommy Emmanuel had been playing this masterful solo version for years. He says he adapted this arrangement from Chet Atkins’ rendition, then allowed it to evolve over time.

Jerry Lee Lewis

Leave it to ol’ Jerry Lee to insert himself into the story. Even without a broomstick, he swept onto the charts with this cool rendition in 1980, giving him Top 10 country hits across four consecutive decades.

Leon Russell with Newgrass Revival

From a 1981 live album, this version smolders with understated keys and the unmistakable voice of Leon Russell. And this trippy video mixes color and black-and-white footage, just like The Wizard of Oz!

Martina McBride

She’s not in Kansas anymore. Released as a single in 2015, Martina sang “Over the Rainbow” on numerous TV broadcasts, including American Idol and the Opry. Give the people what they want!

Chet Atkins, Les Paul

A beautiful instrumental recorded in 1978, Les is on electric, while Chet provides the fingerpicked classical guitar. Look for it on the great and powerful Guitar Monsters album.

Ingrid Michaelson

Released in 2006, Ingrid Michaelson would go on to perform “Over the Rainbow” with a choir of kids from Sandy Hook Elementary School in January 2013. She considers it a “positive and hopeful song.”

Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (“Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World”)

Perhaps the best-known cover, the singer known simply as ‘Bruddah Iz’ around Hawaii found posthumous fame with this inescapable medley. According to NPR, he recorded the song spontaneously in 1988, intending it to be a demo.

Jake Shimabukuro

Iz isn’t the only contemporary Hawaiian musician to tackle “Over the Rainbow.” Check out this solo version by Shimabukuro, who has been playing ukulele since he was 4 years old. It’ll make you want to tap your heels together.


Photo by Redfishingboat (Mick O) on Foter.com / CC BY-NC

In Memoriam: 2016

Every year there are great voices that leave us, but 2016 has particularly riddled with loss — especially for music fans. From the January death of David Bowie to the devastating departure of Prince to the Christmas Day news about George Michael, this was a year that didn’t let up. On the lesser-known end of the spectrum, we lost too many to mention, including Holly Dunn, Joey Feek, Long John Hunter, Steve Young, Georgette Twain Seiff, Billy Paul, Candye Kane, Red Simpson, Ruby Wilson, James King, Hoot Hester, Padraig Duggan, Fred Hellerman, and so many more.

Here, we honor some of those roots music legends who left us this year — and cherish the legacies they left behind.

Glenn Frey (November 6, 1948 – January 18, 2016)

A brilliant musician (and a generally well-liked guy, to boot), Glenn Frey wrote the soundtrack to countless windows-down road trips. Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1968, the founding member of the Eagles played in multiple bands around the city (including a guitar cameo on an early Bob Seger track) before hightailing it to California, where he would really find his footing as a songwriter in the late 1960s. From penning the ubiquitous “Take It Easy” with Jackson Browne to collaborating with Don Henley on hits like “Lyin’ Eyes” and “Heartache Tonight,” Frey was a lynchpin in the harmony-heavy group throughout their prime in the ‘70s and had a formidable solo career during the band’s hiatus, too. Not many bands forge a strong enough bond with their listeners to completely disband for 14 years only to make a seamless comeback, but what Frey built with the Eagles managed to transcend time and genre. Frey amassed a catalog that will only continue to inspire — from impassioned tribute performances of his records to originals authored by a generation raised on them.

Merle Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2017)

Merle Haggard was a musician who lived for the road. “It’s what keeps me alive and it’s what fucks up my life,” he told comrade Sturgill Simpson in a prescient feature published shortly before his death. But the songwriter, guitarist, fiddler, and country music pioneer left behind a lot more than his rip-roaring live performances when he passed away on his birthday earlier this year. Haggard wrote his songs about hard living and hard times, and they weren’t wholly imagined scenarios: The California native spent time behind bars in the late ‘50s, inspiring some of his most popular songs like “Mama Tried,” “Hungry Eyes,” and “Branded Man.” Haggard popularized what became known as the Bakersfield Sound — a less polished twang than the country music that generally came out of Nashville, and a sound that combined electric, rock 'n' roll elements with honky-tonk sensibilities. His rebellion against the overly polished pushed beyond the studio, too, and Haggard won many fans for his frank representation of working class Americans on matters that spanned from the Vietnam War to old-fashioned values. Haggard came up playing dive bars and fighting his way to listeners and, as the divide between pop-country and traditional country sounds grows more prominent, Haggard and his legacy are more important than ever.

Guy Clark (November 6, 1941 – May 17, 2016)

A songwriter’s songwriter, Guy Clark wasn’t just a legend; he was the storyteller that inspired an era’s worth of legends. Born in Monahans, Texas, Clark was integral in shaping Nashville’s outlaw country culture. Beyond his own illustrious career, though, Clark wrote songs for some of the genre’s top-selling and most-beloved artists over the decades, ranging from Johnny Cash, John Denver, and David Allan Coe to Vince Gill, Brad Paisley, and Kenny Chesney. And once he reached the upper echelon of Nashville’s songwriting community, he was notorious for lending a hand to the city’s next big voices, including Gillian Welch and Ashley Monroe. Fans of country music are inextricably fans of Guy Clark, whether they’re aware of his vast influence or not and, while his wit, talent, and presence will be sorely missed, his effect on the artists he left behind will soar for decades to come.

Ralph Stanley (February 25, 1927 – June 23, 2016)

For many bluegrass listeners, Ralph Stanley’s distinctive vocals and deft banjo picking epitomized the genre. He got his start performing with his brother Carter, first as the Clinch Mountain Boys and then finding fame (and a record deal) as the Stanley Brothers. Regular radio spots gave way to studio recordings and the duo performed together for almost two decades before Carter passed away in 1966. Ralph struggled with the decision to continue performing as a solo artist, reviving their old Clinch Mountain Boys moniker for his rotating collaborations. Stanley recorded with the likes of Ricky Skaggs, Curly Ray Cline, Larry Sparks, and Keith Whitley, but his career reached new heights at the turn of the millennium when he was featured on the blockbuster soundtrack for O’ Brother, Where Art Thou? This jolt in the picking pioneer’s career exposed his work to a new generation of budding bluegrass fans, ensuring that the traditions he helped to craft would remain intact through the ages.

Jean Shepard (November 21, 1933 – September 25, 2016)

To be sure, country music has a lot of pioneers, each one blazing a path followed by generation after generation, and Ollie Imogene "Jean" Shepard must surely be counted among them. A honky-tonk singer and country traditionalist who came up in the 1950s, Shepard released 73 singles and recorded 24 albums between 1956 and 1981, becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1955 and an inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2011. Shepard's first number one country hit, "A Dear John Letter," was a duet with Ferlin Husky in 1953. Not only did it also climb to number four on the Billboard pop chart, the song was the first record by a female country artist to sell more than a million copies after World War II. When Shepard joined the Opry, the only two other women on the roster were Minnie Pearl and Kitty Wells. Some 60 years later, there are more than 30 and, at the time of her death from Parkinson's disease, Shepard was the Opry's longest-running living member.

Leonard Cohen (September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016)

Leonard Cohen was first and foremost a poet — one as deserving a Nobel Prize as that awarded to his colleague Bob Dylan earlier this year. Born in Quebec in 1934, Cohen earned his chops as a writer and novelist before launching his musical career in 1967. Over a 48-year tenure, he released 14 studio albums, tackling topics such as death, relationships, religion, and politics, and culminating in his final 2016 release, You Want It Darker. "Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash," he told us.  Thank goodness for that beautiful pile of ash he left behind.

Leon Russell (April 2, 1942 – November 13, 2016)

The word prolific gets thrown around too freely with songwriters, but with Leon Russell it's a truly appropriate descriptor. Thirty-three albums, 400-plus songs, countless collaborations, and a healthy body of production and session work over the course of his 60-year career made Russell into a pillar of American music, one who could easily hold his own with his collaborators, like George Harrison, Ike and Tina Turner, and longtime friend Elton John. If there is a single song of Russell's many that stands out as one of the greatest of the American songbook (and it's hard to choose just one), it's "A Song for You," the soulful, vulnerable lover's lament that opened his 1970 solo debut album, Leon Russell. Over 100 artists — as varied as Whitney Houston, Zakk Wylde, and Willie Nelson — would go on to cover that track. The most-beloved cover, of course, is Donny Hathaway's, recorded for his own sophomore album just one year later, quickly becoming a classic itself. The legacy of "A Song for You" is something of a microcosm of Russell's own legacy which has touched artists of all genres, all ages, all walks of life. On the surface, it's a quiet legacy — Russell isn't, after all, a household name on the level of John or Harrison. But it's a legacy that cuts through such chatter on the strength of its powerful songs — songs that, to borrow a phrase from the man himself, listen like they were written just for you. 

Sharon Jones (May 4, 1956 – November 18, 2016)

Sharon Jones’s powerful vocals, on-stage vigor, and charming warmth felt boundless — the kind of energy that would never give out. Jones was born in Augusta, Georgia, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and, while music was always a force in her life, her breakout success didn’t come early — she released her first full-length record at age 40. With Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, she released five full-length albums before the group’s sixth, Give the People What They Want, was nominated for a Grammy in 2014. Largely credited for the still-kicking revival of soul music, Jones was just as much a powerhouse off the stage. In 2013, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, delaying the release of Give the People What They Want as she underwent chemotherapy. Upon her triumphant return to live performances, she didn’t bother with wigs — that would get in the way of her dancing, of course — and dove right in with the same kind of energy and charisma that has always distinguished the Dap-Kings. They toured, recorded, and released a Christmas album, and brought fans into their world with a documentary. Through every obstacle — including the recurrence of the disease that would ultimately lead to her death — Jones exuded a grace and excitement that will live forever in her legacy.


Lede photo credit: victorcamilo via Foter.com / CC BY-ND.

Squared Roots: Brandi Carlile Makes the Case for Elton John

The classically trained Sir Elton John wasn’t always just so. In his early days, Reginald Dwight was so hooked on the American sounds of Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Jim Reeves, Bill Haley, and Jerry Lee Lewis that the band he formed in 1962 was called Bluesology. Then, in 1967, John met lyricist Bernie Taupin and music history would soon be made. The pair continues writing together today, after more than 57 Top 40 hits (in the U.S.) on 30+ albums … and nearly as many awards.

“Border Song,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Philadelphia Freedom,” and myriad other John/Taupin collaborations fill the soundtracks of so many lives … singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile‘s among them. She grew up idolizing the two British music men and, after combining their influence with a dash of Johnny Cash and a pinch of Patsy Cline, found her own rootsy sound evolving and emanating from that somewhat surprising foundation.

To connect the dots between Sir Elton and American roots music, you have to go back to his days as Reggie Dwight. Draw that line for us.

I feel like sometimes an artist’s separation from their influences by proximity and culture almost intensify and exaggerate the effect that a certain genre has on them. Examples of this that come to mind are Paul McCartney’s passion for Buddy Holly and American rock ‘n’ roll; Old Crow Medicine Show cutting their teeth in Ithaca, NY, only to become incredible live Appalachian bluegrass on steroids — complete with Ketch Secor’s almost savant encyclopedia of knowledge on the genre and his preoccupation with southern culture; British, bluegrass-influenced arena band Mumford and Sons and Colorado-based Lumineers are also good examples of this … not to mention my personal obsession with country music and the South as a northerner or, as an American, my obsession with Brit Pop — Freddie Mercury, the Beatles … but, above all these, Elton John. Admiration from a distance is the strongest kind.

While Elton, by definition, is decidedly British, he has pushed the envelope on genre so far that it’s completely inapplicable to him. He was deeply influenced by American rock ‘n’ roll and roots music. Being so far away from Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley only seems to have fueled the obsession with the culture of early American rock ‘n’ roll roots music for him.

Elton once said that Elvis looked like an alien to him. My great uncle Sunny, a guitar player and singer, told me that he was too busy (along with his friends) being jealous of Elvis Presley to be influenced by him at the time. The space between an artist and the music that inspires them becomes purer as it grows, erasing lines of competition, jealousy, even racism and politics. Elton John is a lover of early American rock ‘n’ roll roots music, pure as the driven snow. He could probably teach you and me a thing or two about it!

The most defining influences from early to current Elton John are his deep love for Leon Russell and Buffy Sainte-Marie. It took an eccentric British man in his 60s to teach me about these two absolute pillars in American folk/roots and to see something fundamental that was right in front of my nose whole time.

Once he teamed up with Bernie Taupin, things shifted. What threads of honky tonk, gospel, and other roots do you hear in their early work?

When Elton John started writing with Bernie Taupin, it was like rock ‘n’ roll met roots — Captain Fantastic meets the Brown Dirt Cowboy — and now you don’t only have early American overtones, musically, but they’re touching lyrically on early American themes. The entire Tumbleweed Connection record is Civil War fantasy meets early American Western. Good guys and bad guys, riverboats, Yankees and the Union, sons of their fathers, New Orleans, and “good old country comfort in my bones.”

Early American gospel makes its way onto Elton John many times, most notably in “Border Song” complete with a nod to ending racism. These themes are a constant throughout their career and continue to be. “Texan Love Song,” to Roy Rogers, all the way to the T Bone Burnett records of today, The Union and The Diving Board.

Bernie Taupin, to me, is the best lyricist there is and certainly the most fantastical and unselfish in his work. He is deeply interpretative and, honestly, self-revealing while also introducing us to fantasy and objectivity unchanged for 40 years.


Elton John with Bernie Taupin (left) in 1971. Photo credit: Public domain.

You have a thing for big personalities in your musical heroes … Elton, Elvis, Freddie Mercury, Johnny Cash. So you clearly don’t think Elton’s flamboyant, costumed persona took anything away from his respectability as an artist. Correct?

No! No way! Elton John’s eccentricity is authentic. Picture Elton John in the hipster attire of his time — skinny jeans and a beard, all browns and fedoras with a tiny tie. Who’s going to believe anything a guy has to say about “Bennie and the Jets” in that? He proved that he could make you cry dressed like Donald Duck. That means everything. Little Jimmy Dickens and Minnie Pearl probably loved him.

There aren’t many artists who could do a duets album that included Tammy Wynette, Leonard Cohen, and RuPaul. So what is it about Elton and his music that create such a wide berth?

The thing about Elton John that creates a wide berth is that he is a truly authentic person who thrives on enthusiasm and loving people! In fact, he loves so many different kinds of people that he regularly offends someone over his acceptance of someone else. Dolly Parton also has this rare gift. Elton tends to embrace the unacceptable — from collaborating with Eminem when he was in such hot water, to playing at Rush Limbaugh’s birthday party, to insinuating that Jesus might be gay, to now getting on the phone with Vladimir Putin on behalf of LGBT Russian citizens. As a result, when Elton john speaks out against something, everyone listens … I certainly do.

Elton is wildly diverse in his efforts to become a bridge builder. He’s very intriguing and his musical collaborations have been very reflective of that. I used to listen to Duets, his collaborative duets record from the ’90s, and I never got tired of it because even if I was over [Don] Henley that day, I could hear him sing with Tammy.

Which album can we point to as the one where he moved completely away from his early influences? Or is there an argument to be made that they are still there, even in “Circle of Life”?

The beauty of Elton and Bernie is that there are no absolutes that can be applied to any one of their albums. They are a wild ride of genre twists and turns, career long. Say what you will about musical consistency, none of these records are background music. You don’t want to have them playing while you’re hosting a dinner party.

If I had to point to a departure from roots music — although never completely — I’d say maybe some of the mid-80s to early-90s stuff. From Leather Jackets, Breaking Hearts, maybe Too Low For Zero, or The Big Picture. However, having said that, those records made a huge impact on me and, last time I checked, I’m still a roots artist. Elton’s Americana leanings are firmly in tact. His last two records with T Bone Burnett are truly some of the best of his career. The Union with Leon Russell is a favorite of mine and The Diving Board is a return to form in a way that feels to me like hearing Johnny Cash sing alone on American Recordings.

Elton and Bernie have deeply influenced me as an American roots artist from 5,000 miles away! Thanks for giving me the chance to say so.


Brandi Carlile photo courtesy of Brandi Carlile. Elton John photo credit: Heinrich Klaffs / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA.