"Kenny "Blue" Ray may be one of the most prolific independent recording artists in the bins. Bless My Axe is his eighth recording on his own Tone King label, and he's recorded on JSP as well. What you get with each of Ray's discs is a meticulously crafted listening experience. Whether it's Texas fire, T-Bone Walker twisting turnarounds or an Albert King knockout punch, Ray's Northern California guitar has enough dazzle to please any music lover. Boxers succeed when they throw punches in effective combinations. Whether he holds a single note, bends three into a deadly tone or accelerates through clusters of 10 - or whether he plays dead-on fills behind a sax, harp, piano or organ - Kenny "Blue" Ray fires off string combinations guaranteed to bring a knockout to whatever he plays."
• Art Tipaldi, Blues Revue, July/August 1998
"Just how good is Kenny "Blue" Ray? Well, all seven of his previously released solo recordings have been CBA "BluesNotes Picks" and I can't ever recall seeing a negative review in any of the national Blues publications. In fact, he's gotten some great reviews mostly focusing on his incredible tone and control. But, I think his ultimate compliment came in "Pulse Magazine" this Spring (March '98) when Blues Guitar Hero, Joe Louis Walker had Kenny "Blue" Ray's Strat Daddy (Kenny's third recording) on his list of 10 Desert Island Discs. That says a lot!"
"How good is this new material? Simply, some of the best stuff he's done! His new solo effort, Bless My Axe, leans a little towards the jazzier side of the Blues; reminiscent of some of the stuff Ronnie Earl's doing these days. Kenny enlists the support of Louis Pain from Paul deLay's Band on Hammond B-3 for four tunes. Louis is a delight contributing a lot to the jazzier sound of the recording. Kenny has no trouble playin' West Montgomery styled licks to keep pace, but then he can muster up most any style of playing without much difficulty."
• Rick Hall, Cascade Blues Association BluesNotes, July 1998
I have Kenny's Way Down in Memphis CD. Albert Collins fans will want to set their players on repeat for track one, "Gator Ride" and track nine "Wildcat". I especially like Gator Ride for the early A.C. sound. I don't know everybody making records today, but Kenny is the best A.C. man I've heard. This is a big deal to me because Albert is my all-time favorite guitarist and I've been listening to him since his days with Jimmy McGriff. Kenny covers the B3 on these two cuts, so that makes the overall effect of them all the more homey for me. Rounding out my top three choices is Ike Turner's "I'm Tore Up" where Kenny is doing pure Freddie King. Kenny's not just an axeman par excellence, he also wrote ten out of the fourteen cuts."
• Dave Therault, 1998
"Add to the ranks of non-singing blues guitarists (Ronnie Earl, Anson Funderburgh, etc.) the name of Kenny "Blue" Ray. His crisp Texas-style lead work carries a heavy dose of Albert Collins reverb without resorting to slavish imitation of the Master of the Telecaster. Ray's no newcomer to the studio; he's cut five CDs for his own label since 1994. This California native splits his JSP bow evenly between tough instrumentals with his crackling axe front and center and vocal outings spotlighting a trio of singers. Ray pays instrumental tribute to Collins on Blues For the Iceman over a Frosty groove, and runs his axe through a Leslie speaker to achieve an organ effect on the deliciously downbeat For 'Jannie Ray'."
• Bill Dahl, Living Blues, September/October 1997
Kenny Blue Ray is a one of a kind Blues treasure! I first saw Kenny perform back in the mid-eighties. It was in New Orleans during Jazz Fest. We were bar hopping checking out all of the different bands in town for the Fest. I heard this amazing guitar playing coming from down the street, so we ran over to see who it was. The club was so packed that we could barely get inside. It was Kenny Ray on guitar, performing with the Marcia Ball Band. (Speaking of Kenny’s Marcia Ball days, you should ask him about the time Marcia’s husband came to a Halloween party as Kenny Ray, with a car fender around his neck…LOL!) This guy seemed to be able to play any blues style with authority, and of course, great tone. He had me mesmerized with his playing. I made a note to try and find out more about this guy, but as usual, I never got around to it.
I had almost forgotten about the mysterious guitar player in N.O. when I was hired to open a show for Mitch Woods at a now defunct club in San Francisco’s North Beach in the late-eighties. We did our opening set, and hung around to check out Mitch’s band. They came out strong with the Albert Collins instrumental “Frosty”. Again, I couldn’t believe how good the guitar player was, he was playing Albert Collins’ style better than anyone that I had ever heard other than Albert himself. I introduced myself on the break, and it turned out that it was, of course, Kenny Ray, the guy that I had seen with Marcia Ball several years earlier. Kenny later recorded that song with guest guitarist; Ronnie Earl, on Mitch’s Solid gold Cadillac album. I stayed until the end of the show, and ended up hanging out with Kenny for most of the night.
It turned out that our musical tastes were very similar, and we were both experimenting with building what we would later call “part-o-casters,” basically these were either Tele or Strat style guitars built with either used Fender or after market parts. Kenny is still building those guitars, and I have been playing a Tele that I made back then for more than twenty years. Not only did Kenny have a much greater knowledge of blues guitar than I did at the time, but he had actually played with many of my heroes of the day, including Stevie Ray, Anson Funderburgh, Little Charlie and many more. I even took a few lessons from Kenny at his old apartment in Berkeley. We soon became fast friends.
In the years since I have seen Kenny play in countless different musical settings in Blues, R&B, Soul, and Jazz (he plays some mean Wes Montgomery and Grant Green style stuff!) He never ceases to amaze me with his playing. Aside from being fluent in the diverse styles of T-Bone Walker, Albert King, Albert Collins, Freddy King, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s B.B. King, Robert Lockwood, Eddie Taylor, Magic Sam, Otis Rush, John Lee Hooker, Stevie and Jimmie Vaughan, Pat Hare and countless others, Kenny always has the best tone.
I have seen him with an endless succession of amps and guitars, and he ALWAYS has great tone. I swear he could get a good tone out of a two by four and bailing wire! When Kenny left Mitch Wood’s band in the early nineties, he was trying to get signed to a label. He got tired of waiting for the labels to come to him, and started to release the series of self-produced CD’s and instructional videos for which he is now so well known.
In the mid-nineties while I was in The Dynatones, I had worked with a singer named Jackie Payne. At this point, Jackie had left The Dynatones, and was also looking for a label. Kenny had been working with some good front men including Charlie Chavez and Little Danny, but Jackie is sort of in a league of his own. The thought came to me that these two should record together. The result was a joint outing for the two of them that resulted in the “Soulful Blues” CD. Kenny allowed me to co-produce that one with him and it remains one of the projects that I take the most pride, in even though I don’t play much on it. When I left The Dynatones, Jackie hired me to perform with his band a few nights a week at Oakland’s Bluesville club. Jackie and Kenny were still making appearances promoting the Soulful Blues CD, and they invited me to join them on a few appearances. Soulful Blues was still getting quite a bit of airplay, and requests were coming in from far and wide for Jackie and Kenny to appear together on festivals. At the time, Kenny had some minor health problems that made traveling somewhat difficult. At that point, I started to travel with Jackie in Kenny’s place. Though the three of us have made a few festival appearances together, the end result was the formation of The Jackie Payne Steve Edmonson Band. It was an amicable split, and both Jackie and I are still eager to perform with Kenny whenever either of us gets the chance. We already miss Kenny since his move up to Portland. I figure that even with all of the great players in the Portland area, Kenny will soon be an indispensable part of that scene. If you get the chance, go and check him out, Blues guitarists just don’t get better than Blue Ray!
Steve Edmonson
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