Ray davis bluegrass biography template

Backstage, behind the thick, dark curtain, they heard the hum come on slowly. “Like a bee swarm,” recalled banjo player Walt Hensley. It was a Friday night in early April, , and hundreds, if not thousands, of urbanites had gathered here, in the heart of New York City, to hear these country musicians play.

Decked in cowboy hats and string bow ties, the Stoney Mountain Boys were not used to such sophisticated audiences or grand and gilded venues. After all, they were from a small industrial city south of the Mason-Dixon, some miles away. But they’d been invited here at the behest of famed folklorist Alan Lomax, who wanted to show the world a “panorama of the contemporary American folk song revival,” with the evening’s concert also including gospel singers and blues acts, like Muddy Waters and Memphis Slim.

Looking out over the giant room, the band stood wide-eyed in wonder at the bright golden lights and the four tiers of balconies filled with red velvet seats. “It began to take effect,” said Hensley. “This wasn’t the kind of hall I was used to playing . . . ”

But after calming their nerves with whiskey, the band took to the stage—frontman Earl Taylor on mic and mandolin, Hensley on banjo, Sam “Porky” Hutchins on guitar, Vernon “Boatwhistle” McIntyre on bass, plus Curtis Cody on guest fiddle—and though they were greeted with little applause, Taylor flashed a smile at his fellow musicians and launched into the fastest song they knew.

This rip-roaring number, aptly named “Fire on the Mountain,” was unlike anything these city slickers had ever heard—a high-speed, hard-driving string sound that exploded off the stage and across the audience like the winds of a locomotive. And when the final chords hit and the room fell quiet, the crowd erupted in cheers, “rarin’ and screamin’ and hair-pullin’,” as Taylor later recalled.

This unexpected music had been born in t

I started out mopping the floor just like you guys. But now now I'm washing lettuce. Soon I'll be on fries; then the grill. In a year or two, I'll make assistant manager, and that's when the big bucks start rolling in.

- Maurice, Coming to America ()

In the offseason, I had a few objectives going into every CFF draft I participated in. One of those was to make sure that I did not leave a draft without Kentucky’s Ray (formerly Re’Mahn) Davis on my roster. That meant — despite his fourth round ADP — drafting him in the second round of most of my drafts in July and August.

In the end, I’m sure most people wouldn’t have had a problem with drafting him in the first round. Davis finished the campaign with a total of yards and 20(!) TDs. He caught 29 of his 37 targets, and averaged touches per game. I’m going to be honest, I actually expected his touch volume to be higher, but his efficiency was so on point this season, that he ended up being highly productive anyways.

Of course, by now, we all know that Davis is moving on to the NFL (as expected). Davis had been in CFB since , and had already rushed for over yards with Vanderbilt the year before; he actually cleared the total yard threshold his freshman season with Temple in Naturally, his departure leaves a huge gap for the Kentucky Wildcats offence headed into

Enter former Arizona State and Ohio State transfer Chip Trayanum. Tray — as Davis was this time last year — is entering his fifth year as he transfers into the Kentucky Wildcats program. Also like Davis, Trayanum is a big back (see height-weight ratio above). The parallels don’t really stop there, either. Similar to Davis, Trayanum’s been a journeyman so far in his CFB career.

He began playing with Herm Edwards’ Arizona State Sun Devils in During that shortened season, his performance in the four games he played in landed him on many a CFF manager’s radar. His very first game (vs. USC), he ran 12 times for 84 yards and two scores

Ray Davis, currently host of The Ray Davis Show on WAMU&#;s Bluegrass Country, celebrates 60 years in broadcasting today (May 2).

Davis joined WAMU in to host Saturday Bluegrass, and shared hosting duties for the weekday afternoon program, Bluegrass Country, until He currently hosts three live hours of traditional bluegrass music on The Ray Davis Show at 3 p.m., weekdays, and 10 a.m., Sundays, on WAMU&#;s Bluegrass Country, heard in Washington, D.C., in HD Radio at , Channel 2, and online at

Davis provides area bluegrass fans and online listeners worldwide with a daily dose of the traditional American art form, from prison songs and &#;plum pitiful&#; tunes to the great train rides &#; and train wrecks &#; of bluegrass music, all delivered with Davis&#; encyclopedic knowledge of the artists and the music. More than a DJ, Ray Davis is both a musicologist and an archivist who takes listeners on a stroll down bluegrass music&#;s memory lane. His specialties, the plum pitiful tunes, are tearjerkers that explore universal themes of death, betrayal, and jealousy.

&#;Ray Davis is a legend in music broadcasting. He has helped define bluegrass music on-air since its earliest days as a discrete genre, and has placed a lasting imprint on it with his dedication to playing, promoting, and recording its musicians&#;, said Caryn G. Mathes, WAMU &#;s General Manager. &#;His booming, resonant voice is synonymous with the sound of bluegrass at WAMU, and his willingness to explore broadcasting on multiple new media platforms as radio evolves has been an inspiration to me.&#;

Davis began his radio career at the age of 15, when he left his boyhood home in Wango, Maryland., for a job at WDOV-AM in Dover, Delaware. He had jobs at other small town stations around the country, as well as a stint south of the border at XERF, where he learned to be a radio pitchman. Davis returned to the east coast and spent 38 years hosting a popular bluegrass prog