Album Notes

After several years of writing songs, Ray Miner decided it was time to start singing them so people could actually hear them. Thus, an old dog learned some new tricks.

In the late 70's, Ray was working as a disc jockey in southern Illinois and would use his days off to travel to Nashville, cassettes in hand, and pitch his songs to publishers up and down Music Row. He never landed a contract, however, some publishers indicated he had potential and encouraged him to keep writing. After putting music on hold for several years to raise his family, he began writing again and is now more committed than at any other time in his music pursuits to get the songs out there for people to hear. To do this, he became the singer, something the shy, quiet, avoid-the-spotlight-at-all-cost guy NEVER thought he would be doing. "Old Dog...New Tricks" is his first release.

Miner's interest in music goes back to his childhood when he would listen to his great-uncles tell stories about their professional music careers which spanned the first half of the 20th century. Trooping for several years with circuses such as Hagenbeck-Wallace, through World War I France, Central America and with a variety of stock companies in the states, there didn't seem to be a town in the country that could be mentioned without conjuring up a story of some kind. Now, after skipping a generation, music is back in the Miner family.

And now it's your chance to hear the songs.