From the first note of his 2005 debut through his most recent 2023 release, Ray Scott leaves little doubt as to who he is: a tried-and-true country music storyteller. A songsmith. A man who has built an entire career on the back of each note and the shoulders of every lyric.
A take nothing for granted / earn every step kind of guy.
Though his career was shot out of a Warner Bros. cannon in the form of his debut album My Kind of Music, the rest of the way has been paved solely by Ray. Garnering enormous critical acclaim, Scott’s first single, the title track, cracked the Top 40. After that, a combination of label politics and radio’s reluctance to embrace his fresh approach to country traditions had him off the label less than two years later.
For some artists, that’s the end of the road but for Ray Scott, that’s where it truly begins.
Crazy Like Me (2008) garnered strong critical reaction and surprising sales. Encouraged, Ray connected with producer Dave Brainard (Jerrod Niemann, Brandy Clark) to record his third album Rayality (2011). The single “Those Jeans” received substantial airplay on SiriusXM boosting sales to a few hundred thousand copies. All the while, Scott kept touring incessantly – both coast to coast as well as internationally and kept on writing.
When it came time for his next album, 2014’s self-titled Ray Scott, Ray made a shift in the music he let out into the world.
“It's country music the way I interpret it,” he says. “The kind of music I’m making now is not age specific. I’m not out there wiggling my ass for anybody. It’s about telling stories, making people smile and feel something,” says Scott. “I understand sometimes the business has a place for what I do and sometimes it doesn’t, but what I do has kept me alive out there in the world because it’s different enough that people get passionate about it. They stick with it. I don’t sound like anybody else, and I don’t want to.”
Not wanting to make the fans wait another three years between albums but knowing he wasn’t ready for his next, Scott created Roots Sessions, Vol. I. Released in late 2015, the six- song EP was comprised entirely of cover songs. To Scott, it was a tip of the cap to some of his heroes. For the fans, it was a glimpse into some of what inspired him to become the artist they had come to know and love.
By the time 2017’s Guitar for Sale came around, Ray opted to change producers along with the way he recorded, both of which brought a new dimension to his sound.
“We live tracked this one, which we hadn’t done in a few years. It brought back a new energy. It’s a different sound, but familiar too. It was a step in a good direction. This was sort of a regroup for me – not only artistically, but in terms of my career. My music and my sense of where it fits in the music business has really taken shape over the past several years. So, this is an introduction to that for people who may not be familiar with me, and it’s a defining of that vision for those who already know my music.”
Along with the new dimension to his sound, this album also brought a new dimension to Scott’s career he’s extremely proud of. Thanks to his incredibly supportive fan base, beginning with Guitar for Sale all the way through current day, fans have provided 100% of the upfront funding for his studio costs through various crowd-funding sources.
After Guitar for Sale came the one-two punch of six-song EP’s in 2019’s Honky Tonk Heart and 2020’s Nowhere Near Done, each featuring some of Ray’s best songwriting to date. While Ray was able to stretch the legs of Honky Tonk Heart out on the road, Nowhere Near Done got the raw deal of being released just as the Covid-19 pandemic put its suffocating grips on the world.
If one good thing came out of the Covid shutdown of 2020, it was the birth of Ray-ve In the Cave, Scott’s then weekly livestream show where he and guitarist Joe Cook would hang out in Ray’s basement with their guitars, a beverage or two, and perform live. Named one of Pollstar’s Top 50 Livestreams, Ray-ve gave Scott more of a one-on-one, interactional relationship with his audience than he ever had before. Some of that came from the heartfelt performances and VH1 storyteller’s vibe and some if it came from the self-deprecating, and often times, unhinged sense of humor.
With so much time at home, Scott’s 6th full length album (8th release overall) took shape and in September of 2021, Cover the Earth was unleashed. A master class in songwriting, sensitivity and soul, fans gravitated like never before. Of course, it was the songwriting but also, as a byproduct of the relationship they now felt as a result of their one- on-one Ray-ve In the Cave interactions with Scott himself. The connection was stronger, and it was a two-way street. As much as Ray knew his fans better than he ever did, fans felt a deeper understanding of him.
From there, the road is wide open. 2022 saw Ray let loose and have some fun with his first ever holiday offering, “Santa’s Sack” off the 2023 album Wrong Songs (Musings from The Shallow End). Slated for release in the spring of 2023, this collection of eight hilarious, often off-color, high energy, honky-tonk tunes are designed to elicit one emotion and one emotion only – laughter. Given the response to “Santa’s Sack” (over 110,000 YouTube views in its first month), it’s safe to say Scott’s joke hit the mark.
To be clear, this isn’t a new path for the baritone from North Carolina. He’s not changing course to become the next country comedian. Wrong Songs is just a way to have a few laughs and give some of the diehards what they’ve been asking for before he moves on to his next ‘serious’ album, which is already recorded.
“If you would’ve asked me back when we were having troubles with radio on the debut album or when I first set out on this independent artist trail, I might have said something different. But today, with where I stand, what I’m singing and who I’m singing to...I couldn’t be happier. I get to make country music, my country music. I have fans that appreciate the songs and the stories inside ‘em and that’s all I ever wanted. I’ve never needed to be the next Garth. All I wanted was to be able to write my songs and play ‘em for people who liked what I had going on. I get to be the artist I’m supposed to be and thank God, there are some people in this world that like that. It’s a good life.”