Below is yet another tribute to Dave Ray printed in today's St. Paul Pioneer Press, at http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/entertainment/4633620.htm

I must confess some ambivalence about seeing these tributes in the local papers. They seem to be falling all over themselves saying nice things about him now that he's dead, but they rarely reviewed his work or printed notices of upcoming performances while he was alive.

His performance at the Cedar Cultural Center on Nov. 17 was an exception, but that rated only one paragraph at the end of a long column, and that probably because (1) the Cedar is the biggest local "folk" venue, and (2) he was appearing with a big-name touring musician, Geoff Muldaur.

Now, it could be that the newspapers aren't totally to blame. Maybe Dave didn't bother to put out press releases, and only the Cedar did. Maybe Dave preferred to keep in contact with his fans through his web site. But I didn't know he had a web site until I read it in Mudcat, and that was only mentioned after it was announced that Dave had cancer.

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Posted on Sat, Nov. 30, 2002   

IN APPRECIATION: Spirit of the blues lived in Dave Ray
BY ROB HUBBARD
Pioneer Press

Dave Ray never shook the blues.

From the first time he picked up a guitar in his early teens to his death Thursday from cancer at age 59, the Minneapolis folk legend was a one-man blues revival, using his pick, slide and growling voice to bring the genre's classic tunes to life. Over the past four decades, a week would rarely pass when you couldn't find Ray on the stage of some Twin Cities bar or coffeehouse, singing and picking the blues from his soul.

Among the performers who brought the "folk scare" to the java joints around the University of Minnesota campus in the late '50s and early '60s, Ray was the youngest and bluesiest of the bunch. After turtleneck-clad young strummers would offer plaintive love ballads, Ray would rough up the proceedings with raw acoustic blues.

The passionate young picker was an inspiration to all of the other folkies who hung around the U, including Bob Zimmerman, who soon moved to New York, changed his last name to Dylan, and remained a lifelong friend of Ray.

While visiting New York, Ray and harmonica player Tony Glover met a fellow Minnesotan, John Koerner. An evening of club hopping, sitting in and talking music gave birth to a partnership built around complementary tastes and interactive energy.

Just as Ray was the bluesman of the U's folk scene, Koerner, Ray & Glover became the prime purveyors of the blues in America's burgeoning folk movement, astounding audiences at such high-visibility venues as the Newport Folk Festival. Like the blues musicians they idolized, they took on nicknames: "Spider" John Koerner, "Snaker" Ray and "Little Sun" Glover.

The trio went in different directions later in the '60s but continued to reunite occasionally for concerts at such Minneapolis haunts as the Cedar Cultural Centre and First Avenue. Ray proved the perfect partner for Koerner's old-timey spirit and Glover's down-home harmonica. He often traveled in tandem with Koerner and performed a weekly gig with Glover for 10 years at the Times Bar in downtown Minneapolis. Up until recently, the duo continued the weekly evening of acoustic blues at Lee's Liquor Lounge.

But Ray was never a relic of the '60s seeking to recapture past glory. He was a working musician who enjoyed nothing more than conjuring the spirit of the blues to life with a variety of bands that sported such names as the Three Bedroom Ramblers, the Elegonzos and the Volunteers of the Blue Knight. While the groups were reviving seldom heard songs from a variety of traditions — ragtime, early jazz, vintage soul — Ray was always the one finding the blues that lurked beneath the surface of each style, plumbing it to the surface in exhilarating fashion.

Ray played his last local gig at the Cedar two weeks ago and bid his final farewell to audiences in the company of Koerner and Glover at Princeton University on Nov. 22. It was an appropriate end for a trio that found much of its early audience on Eastern college campuses.

Ray will be memorialized in a private service next week, but his many admirers are encouraged to attend a First Avenue show on Dec. 13 that was originally scheduled to be a Koerner, Ray & Glover performance. There, many of the musicians whose lives he touched over the past four decades will doubtless pay tribute to him in word and song.

LISTEN TO RAY

To hear samples of Dave Ray's music, go to www.amazon.com and search for "Koerner, Ray and Glover."
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Rob Hubbard can be reached at rhubbard@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5247.