

You certainly have been doing this a very long time, since you were a kid I’ve been doing that for a long time, and I say that with tongue-in-cheek. (laughs) Well, I think playing a rock star is awfully fun. (laughs) Well, I like to think of myself as a devil-may-care, fun kind of guy and I have a pretty nice and simple life when I’m not on the road playing a rock star. You get to hang out with one of the most respected singers and songwriters in the world but what it’s like to hang out with you? Glide got the lowdown on Ray’s fun, adventurous and satisfying rock & roll ride while the guitarist was actually rolling down the highway in sunny California. “Not too bad at all,” Ray said with a laugh during our interview last week while he was enjoying some time off the road. Being able to spend his younger years with someone as talented and feisty as Etta James and then jumping into a band with one of the most beloved singers of our lifetime has been a blessing beyond words.

“I just started playing a revved up, crazy version,” and it stuck.įor Ray, music has always been a great love in his life. For his version, Ray added in some of Buffalo Springfield’s “Mr. “It was gritty and tough but it had grace and beauty in the melody and the lyric along with an almost haunting relentless energy to it.” He found out later that it was written by Young about his older sister Jean, who had a folk duo with her husband and was playing clubs in LA at the time. “I was going to a boarding school in the seventh grade in Ojai, California, and I remember hearing ‘Cinnamon Girl’ for the very first time and I was just knocked out by it,” Ray explained last month when “Here For You” made its premiere. Recording the classic “Cinnamon Girl” was something very personal to Ray. He released his first solo album, Mondo Magneto, in 2006, but he seems to like going the singles route, at least for now. And that is what Brian Ray has done with his frisky new single “Here For You,” which is backed by a cover of Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl.” In the same vein as the music he records with his band the Bayonets, Ray brings his natural born California sunshine melodies alive and makes no apologies for wanting to make the world a happier place, even when singing about how it’s a time of turmoil.īest known for playing guitar with Paul McCartney for the last fifteen years, and for Etta James before that, Ray does like to venture away from his regular gig by writing, recording and producing music for himself and others. You are less likely to find tunes reminiscent of these catchy foot-tappers in today’s so-called pop music world but every once in a while a musician will spring one on us. It harkens up happy melodies with lyrics usually about girls and hot rod cars and puppy love and hanging out with your friends. In a world where the term pop music leaves a bad taste in your mouth, if you look back at the early sixties, the Beatles was considered pop music and it was a good thing.
