A veteran of the Minnesota Music scene, Ray has recorded 20 CD’s (latest is “Wisdom”), played thousands of live shows, and produced CD’s for other artists in his own recording studio. A multi -instrumentalist Ray sings, plays acoustic and electric guitars, and keyboards. Ray is heavily influenced by guitarists Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Tony Iommi, David Gilmour, Robin Trower, The Beatles and too many others to list.
Ray started playing guitar at 11 years old and his high school band Crossfire in the mid 70’s became an instant hit booking many gigs even when no one in the band owned a car. They had to be creative to get transportation to the gigs. In the late 70’s and early 80’s Ray played with the local hard rock group Hotash. A six piece group that started with nothing and with persistence owned their own large sound and light system and bus to tour the upper Midwest. Ray’s house and band headquarters in St. Paul Park hosted legendary parties and jam sessions. After Hotash Ray did a stint as a guitar slinger playing with a variety of bands and jamming with blues legend Mojo Buford. In the late 80’s Ray joined Compass a local 5 piece progressive rock band. They released the CD Broken Man (Ray’s first CD) in 1991. After Compass disbanded Ray bought his own Tascam 8 track reel to reel recording system and released his first solo CD Out Of Sight Out Of Mind in 1994 which has now become a collector’s item. Ray got the live one man band concept after attending a Todd Rundgren concert and began assembling the backing tracks in his home studio.
Official Ray Gilman website: https://www.raygilman.com
