Thursday, June 16, 2005
by www.CDbabel.com
Portland, OR

"Feels like a Paul Simon album... Nicely mellow, and definitely musically sound. Worth a listen. Poetic… a very nice flow and fun lyrics. Jeff Ray's lyrics in general are insightful,.. The lyrics they work well with the songs and are rarely cheesy…

The vocal effect for his falsetto break on "Out From My Dreams" is a nice touch, lending it a little extra loftiness… Generally the CD is well mixed and very pleasant. The instruments come in really clear, especially on "Just Like Singing" where the slide guitar really does sing on the record…

The instrumental "Samadhi" is awesome. I have rarely heard its match for sound and creativity. The layering of the sounds works perfectly... The music is very folky and sometimes has some very nice slide…

This album is pretty darn good… Very musical, mellow, and melodic. June Generation has the feel of a Paul Simon album."

Thursday, May 12, 2005
by Andrew Olson
Reader Weekly, Duluth, MN

When critics sit and listen to CD's they try to find signature sounds to compare the artist to.  Usually this is easy enough for the critic because they have an ear for music.  With Jeff Ray's Sophomore CD June Generation (Peace Stream Records) the routine review becomes an egregious task.  The various influences and mixture of sounds resembles so much, and yet becomes something very unique.

"A Quiet One" was dedicated to George Harrison.  It begins with the lines, "All things can wait, but the search for God can't... Love one another - please."  This is central to what Harrison dedicated his life to; the search.  He believed that is was pointless to search for cures in life and waste all that money, it would be better spent looking for what happens after we die.  This is something that many fans of Harrison have adopted into their own thoughts and beliefs.

Jeff Ray's music influences are Bob Dylan, The Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, and George Harrison.  Each show up in its own way, but Jeff mixes their sounds into a fluid motion of music.  The best song on the disc, "Samadhi" is influenced by Harrison, but is an UnHarrison-like instrumental.  It teeters on different genres, but rests in a sitar laced guitar jam.  Before you make assumptions on Jeff's sound though, "Alabama Goodbye" follows the Beatles to the Allman Brothers, if that is musically possible.  The organ resonates in the Gospel-influenced "Like A Rolling Stone" mode that Dylan used and was heavily copied in the early seventies... By the Allman Brothers.

Jeff is from Minnesota but spent some time in Memphis, TN.  In the song "Just Like Singing" there is a delta blues slide with a smooth resonating guitar.  His live show incorporates a metal-body Resonator Guitar and highlights improvised jamming.  As usual Beaner's continues to invite new sounds into the area, and keeping our ears up to date on what is floating around Minnesota.  Jeff Ray is a rising musician that has recently performed at the Tucson Folk Festival and NPR's Acoustic Sounds Cafe from Little Rock, Arkansas.  Check him out this Saturday [May 14, 2005].

Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005
by Kari Knutson
Winona Daily News, Winona, MN

It all started with listening to his three older brothers' albums.  There was a collection of Led Zeppelin records.  More importantly, there was a guitar.  The guitar was for a right-handed person, and Jeff Ray was left-handed.  No Matter.

Ray, 27, learned to play it and has been playing guitar right-handed ever since.  He will perform Friday, Jan. 21 [2005], at the Acoustic Cafe in Winona.

Ray likes to combine the sounds of blues greats such as Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters with acoustic elements of Led Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers.

He recently recorded "June Generation," a CD that contains "Essex," the first song he had ever written, when he was 17.

Ray grew up in Rochester, Minn., and has drawn inspiration from the many places he has lived.  He attended the University of Memphis to study Chemistry for three years, playing music with an eclectic mix of musicians.

Then he transferred to UW-Madison and now lives in St. Paul.  He graduated with a degree in pharmacology and was on his way to becoming a pharmacist when he had to face the music.

"I kept thinking, 'Do I really want to do that every day?  Is that where I'll find happiness?'"

The answer was a resounding "no," so Ray has spent the last three years working on his solo music career.  He splits his time between working part time at the University of Minnesota as a molecular biology researcher and playing two to three shows a week.

While the two might seem to be an unusual combination, Ray thinks it's a perfect balance.

"I always thought they both go hand in hand," Ray said, "They're both exploratory - you're trying to figure things out in life.  One is based on fact, the other on intuition."

Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005
by Joe Lawler
Des Moines Register, Des Moines, IA

Jeff Ray was born in Minnesota and lived in Memphis for years, giving his music a quality that could only come by blending the birthplaces of Bob Dylan and the delta blues.  The acoustic guitar player performs at 9:30pm Saturday [Jan. 22, 2005] at Java Joe's, 214 Fourth St. [Des Moines, IA]

Ray plays with a bluesy style, using a slide to create an old-timey feel.  Ray writes his own material as well as performing some covers, such as Muddy Water's "Can't be Satisfied."  The Onion compared his work to Led Zeppelin and Nick Drake, and, for once, they were being serious.  Ray released his second CD, "June Generation" last year.

Thursday, Dec. 30, 2004
by Christina Killion Valdez
Post-Bulletin, Rochester, MN

It wasn't learning the ropes of blues, hip-hop and folk in Memphis or spending time diversifying his repertoire of original folk songs in Madison that inspired Jeff Ray's latest musical fore.

Born and raised in Minnesota, the musician, who goes simply by Jeff Ray as a performer, found his muse waiting for him at home.

"I came back because of Minnesota music," Ray said.

Ray grew up in Rochester and graduated from John Marshall High School in 1995, where he played in various bands, including the rock band Black River Falls.  Back then he was mainly a lead guitarist, but Ray said he learned several other instruments to strengthen his songwriting.  And he used all of those skills to fill out the jam band sound of his latest CD release, "June Generation."

On this CD, Ray 27, who's usually a solo bluesy-folk performer based in St. Paul, plays all the instruments, including steel-body National resonator slide guitar, Hammond organ, mandolin, percussion, drums and the vocals.

But not before leaving his home base to explore the world of music.

His first stop was a three-year stint in Memphis, where he started playing blues and some blues and hip-hop fusion, he said.  There he was also introduced to the music of the lesser-known British folk musician Nick Drake, who became a larger inspiration, he said.

After four years in Madison adding folk to his style, the music of Minnesota drew Ray home.  Some of his favorites are hearing Charlie Parr in Duluth, Pat Donohue on Garrison Keillor's radio show "Prairie Home Companion," and Bob Dylan, he said.

Plus the song that grounds his latest CD release is one he wrote at age 17 while sitting in Essex Park in Rochester.

"It's sort of the philosophical grounding for the whole album," Ray said of the song "Essex."

Like "Essex," most of the tracks deal with Ray's reflections on society and where the world is headed as well as how people can make a positive impact on their surroundings.

"It's the old George Harrison approach," he said.

Musically, the CD varies among all of Ray's influences from the rock sounds of the Allman Brothers and Led Zeppelin to the modern jam band vibe and into introspective, quiet folk.

Grounding the CD even deeper into Ray's Minnesota roots was recording it in his own St. Paul home studio and getting his older brother Steve Digre, who served as Ray's primary inspiration, to master it.

Now that he's comfortably at home with his music, Ray said, "I anticipate leaving again."