Ray Cardwell re-located from Missouri to Nashville in August to return to a career in bluegrass music.
“One of the most interesting things about Ray is his range,” Pat Flynn says. “He has a very diverse musical background. We have a bluegrass foundation on these recordings, but we’re doing everything from “blues and gospel to a capella and straight-ahead bluegrass.”. Ray is able to embrace a lot of different styles…and pull them all off. His vocals are very distinctive, as well as his bass playing; that sets the stage for us to do a lot of things acoustically with modern bluegrass as a base.”
Ray has put together a Nashville-based bluegrass band known as Tennessee Moon, named after one of his original songs. There are many different shades of blue in 21st century bluegrass, and fans are going to like the way Ray combines traditional and progressive grooves, some gospel and even some reggae—and it’s almost exclusively his own original music. Playing with Ray will be Pat Flynn, Kyle Wood, Ward Stout, Kelsey Crews and Michael Testagrossa.
Ray Cardwell has the kind of voice and stage presence that leaves an audience spell-bound and makes converts wherever he plays with a high energy sense of musical adventure and the chops to back it up. As a band leader, music director or sideman, Ray has performed and toured extensively with bluegrass, Americana, country, jazz, reggae, blues, musical theater, new wave, Motown, choral and rockabilly groups.