AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BUDDY RAY
I was born about 3 miles east of Gleason Tennessee on January 15th 1940.Gleason is in the Northwest corner of the state.
My given name is Harley B. Ray, but my dad nicknamed me Bud.
I got interested in music at about 6 or 7 years of age. My Father bought me a Gene Autry guitar and I loved it. I guess I drove them crazy with it! I left it out in the rain one day and it came apart! My Grandfather then attached the neck(which is all that was left) to a toy drum ,and made me another guitar! It made quite a racket and that’s about all!(I wish I had the original guitar)!
On hot summer nights we would sit in the porch swings and listen to the Grand Ol’Opry. (Ira and Charlie Louvin, Jimmy Dickens, Roy Acuff, Chet Atkins...etc. The songs they sang mentioned country things. Plowing with an old mule...fishing, hunting, life in the country ,and etc. Things of the heart is what country music is about in my opinion., The song of a whip-poor-will on a warm summer night, The smell of fresh cut hay. I STILL love all that!
I borrowed my cousins guitar and learned chords until my fingers were blistered and bleeding! I learned them the hard way!
After my Grand parents all died in the early 50’s,my Father came to Michigan to look for a better way of life. My Mother and I were on our own for a year, and I was the man of the house! We raised a garden and took care of each other until Dad brought us to Michigan to live during the Automobile boom days in September of 1954.
It was then that I took up the guitar again, but this time I was playing at house parties, and clubs and learning from other musicians, and working on my own style of playing. I enjoyed it so much! Playing country music in those days sometimes caused some to look down on you, and call you names. Degrading remarks sometimes brought on fist fights .I have had my share of trouble over things of that nature. I have never been ashamed of being a country music lover, and I would do it all again.
I started playing at Clubs with my cousin Chuck Slaughter about 1958.
I was on Lucky Eleven Records and recorded two of Jack Ripley’s songs with Chuck Slaughter. I had been doing live radio with Big Joe Hammock and others on Radio station WMRP.
I started playing music with Forrest Green in the early 1960‘s. Later on I started doing live radio with Forrest Green and working Stage shows and Grand Ol’Opry Shows. I have been playing music with Forrest since that time. I have played years of live radio and TV shows free just to keep country music on the airways.
There were approximately only 6 radio stations in the state that played country music at that time.
I have played guitar on well over 400 records at Ranger studios as staff musician, and 26 weeks of television on channel 50 in Southfield Michigan, plus the radio program” The Saginaw valley jamboree" Which was all affiliated with Forrest Green and Ranger records studios of Clio.
Ranger Records studios was owned by Forrest Green of Clio. Forrest is a member of the Hall of Fame also He was inducted in 1993. He has had a lot to do with promoting Country Music in this state. In fact he has helped many local artists over the years. If it were not for him I may not have been as involved as I have been. It was his promoting and recordings that filled up my life as a musician in those years.
I have had the extreme privilege on being on shows as back up Guitarist with some of the finest folks in the music business. TEX RITTER, SKEETER DAVIS, BOBBY BARE, MARTY ROBBINS, BOBBY HELMS, WARNER MACK, STRING BEAN, COUSIN JODY, THE GLAZER BROTHERS, THE WILLIS BROTHERS, GEORGE MORGAN, CLAUDE KING, MARGIE BOWS, BENNY MARTIN, CARL AND PEARL BUTLER, MEL TILLIS AND BILLY WALKER, JEANNIE PRUITT, EDDIE RABBIT and PETE DRAKE, just to name a few. I can’t recall them all without thinking about it a while. Some were the very same people that I listened to from that old porch swing in Gleason Tennessee. God has truly blessed me. I have been doing this over 50 years . I also retired from GM in 1993.I don’t know how I crammed it all into my life! It has been a dream fulfilled, and I thank God for it every day. I was very active for a while in Playing for the forgotten folks in area nursing homes ,and recording Gospel CD‘s and others with Forrest Green and Family.
I have had spinal surgery in 2006, and do not play as well as I once did, but I do play a little and seem to be improving.
Myself and the Green family are all volunteers in this area. We have been blessed with talent, and have entertained the less fortunate than we are, so that talent did not go to waste.I will be 70 years old in January of 2010.
Very Cordially yours....Buddy Ray
