Don Ray Band – Lonesome Rider

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Sitting on the porch drinking a beer listening to the Don Ray Band will become a favorite past time of fans. Although I have listened to the CD and find different nuggets each time I listen, Poison is the standout track to my ears. Something a bit different than the other tracks and more Southern Rock with slide guitar the way we love it. The next track, Gone Nowhere, follows in the same vein and comes together in tour de force of Southern Rock.

The Don Ray Band has loads of professional talent in both the studio and on stage so the influences are made into their own unique form. You won’t hear much more professional musicians than these folks. As for the music, it is a mix of many styles but holds true to the roots of the bands influences.

With Don Ray and his cast of talented band mates he has transposed their influence in a very subtle way as well and is walking the same path, with some finely crafted and performed songs. I wonder if this music will be too sophisticated for many southern rock fans with its influences that sounded to me like T-Bone Walker, George Benson, The Allman Brothers Band, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Delbert McClinton. But influences are just that, they help mould the sound that is the Don Ray Band, the subtle influences merge to form what is a fine CD by an excellent band.

You will very rarely hear and artist who offers such a variety of styles on one album, from down home Raising a Ruckus to lead off track The Trigger with its jazz influences, to the rocking southern rock of Lonesome Rider, to the blues of Love Is, to the jazzy sounding Ball and Chain this is music that just begs to be played over and over.

Review by Vernon Tart

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