Boo Ray on Collaborative Series, Boocoo Amigos

Credit: Geoff Moore

Southern troubadour Boo Ray has forged his singular path in South Georgia honky-tonks, Gulf Coast jukes, Nashville nightclubs & L.A. music joints. In 2016 he released his third album, Sea of Lights, a project forged by intense lyricism, gritty melodies, and Ray's smoky drawl that found him receiving critical acclaim from numerous outlets, including Rolling Stone and No Depression.

Always continuing to flex his musical creativity, Boo Ray began Boocoo Amigos, a duet project which unites the singer-songwriter with a wonderfully diverse group of artists on originals and covers that are out of the box and unique. In October 2017, he paired with Lilly Winwood for their take on the Kenny and Dolly classic, “Islands In The Stream” and followed that up with the boozy holiday-themed tune “All Strung Out Like Christmas Lights" featuring Elizabeth Cook. Then, on April 13th, Ray reunited with Lilly for the release of “Hard to Tell” a sultry, blues-infused tune the pair wrote as the A-side to “Islands In The Stream.” Boo Ray says that “After doing 'Islands In The Stream', we decided we wanted to write some yacht rock disco tune like Eddie Rabbit in the 70’s. I had 'Hard To Tell', which at the time was in this drunk electric waltz style a la Rabbit’s 'Every Which Way but Loose', in my back pocket for three years; Lily and I fixed it up and flipped the beat to give it the Muscle Shoals, R&B shuffle that it has today.”  

And that shuffle sounds sweet on the 7-inch vinyl release, a partnership Ray entered into with Athens-based company Kindercore Vinyl which was instrumental in the inception of Boocoo Amigos. “Up 'til this point, I had never released vinyl. I was studying record making for quite some time and knew that an API console and an Antex tape machine are made for each other like salami and cheese, but even though I had digital and halfway analog recordings, I knew I didn’t have quite the right process of recording, in the right chain of command of equipment, to do a correct press. Then, Kindercore suggested doing a 7-inch single and the pieces fell into place. Before we hit record, we knew we were engineering all the Boocoo Amigos specifically to be listened to on vinyl. It took me all these years and I finally got it right.”

With two pairings thus far, Ray says that more are definitely planned. “We have a bunch of them recorded. The next one, which I am super excited about, will be two original singles I wrote with Sean Brock.” Brock, a professional chef, is also a singer-songwriter who Ray deems, “a fully formed artist;" adding further, “That applies to southern artists like James Willis, Elizabeth Cook, Cormac McCarthy, Nick Cave, and so on…they’re on the same bill, meaning it’s the way they live, they’re identity is tied up in creative dialogue.” 

That dialogue is a part of Boo Ray too. "I've been living out of suitcase and a flattop guitar case solidly since 2009. I don’t offer that as a complaint...it's a choice." Ray's story begins in North Carolina, a place he stayed until "I got a car and got out of there" leading him to stops in California and Athens where he released his first Americana record, Bad News Travels Fast, in 2010. ​"I scrapped together nine recordings from different studios and sessions, slapped them on a CD and sent out 130. I got a call back from one deejay who showed me how to send them out to radio – in lumpy packages so other mail won’t sit on top of them.”  So being the creative force he is, Ray packaged eighty-five miniature MoonPies along with a CD, a one-sheet, and stickers and sent them out - all from a halfway house in Athens on the house computer and phone line. “You do the best you can and sometimes that comes out weird and sideways.”

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In 2013, he followed that up with Six Weeks in a Motel, a project that holds a special place for him. He notes, “I made that record with Sol Philcox and the thing is, I'm proud of it. It's a record I keep going back to. I have re-recorded songs off it and two other tunes were recorded by females, one a German artist and the other Caroline Aiken, a top-notch picker, who used one as the title track for her album [Broken Wings Heal]. I’ve discovered that with certain types of artists there’s a record they go back to, keep mining, and keep referencing because they hit pay-dirt creatively, and I think I did with that one. I’m glad it’s part of my story.”

With three Americana albums under his belt, consistent touring, and critical acclaim, Ray has come a ways since 2010. While embraced by American Songwriter, Rolling Stone, and other outlets, Ray’s goal isn’t in the glory. Music is his calling and he's happy to reside on the fringes of mainstream. “I don’t fit into and am not trying to get into that world. The style and approach to my music is modeled after the guys who helped me discover Americana  - Jim Lauderdale, Colin Linden, Ray Wylie, Guy Clark, and Mike Deagle.  Those guys are songwriters who made records that were current, with 75% of the record being a Johnny Cash peace sign to the industry and 25% being a hit song or two that if someone else got their hands on it could have been a hit. You write and try to have a relationship with a market, but with the changing world, the position of a songwriter is becoming altered. Artists and record companies have to have a piece of the writing and publishing and I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve seen the quality of material in the mainstream market decrease so incredibly.”

In an ever-expanding sea of artists, many of whom follow a particular formula, and a music community that craves varied and unique ways of hearing singles and albums, Boo Ray sets himself apart. The key, he says, is to keep moving. “There’s a massive sea of media out there right now and we are just a tick on the rear of pop culture social media. We’re not really selling a whole ton of records, but we’re going for it and pushing hard. The reality of it is that it takes all of you and you have to be willing to reach for the silver, not just the brass ring.”

​Along with the BooCoo Amigos series, Ray's been working on a follow-up to Sea of Lights and says that his new album, “a greasy, southern, singer-songwriter Muscle Shoals-Jerry Reed sounding thing” mastered by Pete Lyman, is in the can.

Boo Ray’s touring the Southeast, find out where you can see him and more by visiting the links below.


**** One lucky reader, and vinyl lover, can win a copy of the 7-inch Islands In The Stream/Hard To Tell. Simply comment below or on Twitter/Facebook to be entered!****

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