The Blue Note Presents:
Stoney LaRue
Ashley Ray
Wed, March 14, 2012
Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm
The Blue Note (MO)$15.00
Tickets
This event is all ages
A limited quantity of reserved balcony tables are available by request at our box office or by calling (573) 874 1944. Please note that you must purchase all four tickets at the table for a reservation. IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE 21, please be prepared to pay a $2 cash minor surcharge at the door in addition to purchasing a ticket.
http://www.thebluenote.com/event/99483/Stoney LaRue
At 3 years old, Stoney LaRue could be found belting out “Swinging” by John Anderson on his Mr. Microphone radio. The son of a struggling bass player and a nurse, LaRue understood the allure of music at an early age, and recorded his first works at age twelve. He earned accolades through school for his unmatched vocal abilities and promising instrumental talents. Many subscribe Stoney LaRue to the category of artists that are simply natural born performers, just don’t try to limit him by category.
From Willie Nelson to Ray Charles, to The Grateful Dead and Kris Kristofferson, LaRue’s emerging style impressively blends varied elements of country, blues, and soulful rock into cohesive, vocal driven performances. His abilities earned the immediate respect of then “up and coming” peers including Cody Canada, Mike McClure, Jason Boland, and other cohorts of the revitalizing Texas and Red Dirt circuits (now electrifying audiences nationwide.)
Fans anxiously awaited the August 2005 release of Stoney LaRue-the Red Dirt Album, which hit the Billboard sales charts in its debut week. A far cry from the mixing trailer on the cliff, The Red Dirt Album was recorded with a tight circle of players and professionals in a studio setting. The record was a pinnacle effort for LaRue and has inarguably established his triple threat status as a truly gifted vocalist, player, and performer.
In 2006, Stoney released an addition to the famed Live at Billy Bob’s series. His live single, “Oklahoma Breakdown” topped the Texas charts for over four weeks and has ignited Stoney’s powerful support as an artist not to be missed. Armed with golden ear musicianship, an amusing wit, and soulful magnetism, LaRue’s shows are infused with an uplifting quality, a cathartic barroom brand of spirituality, where venues are complimented for good bar “feng shui,” and where time and dimension can be traversed via emotive lyrics and melodic riffs. A charismatic performer, LaRue’s flawless vocals can draw a crowd to a open mouth level of sonic mesmerization, and next have them singing “Forever Young” so loudly that you can’t hear anything else.
From Willie Nelson to Ray Charles, to The Grateful Dead and Kris Kristofferson, LaRue’s emerging style impressively blends varied elements of country, blues, and soulful rock into cohesive, vocal driven performances. His abilities earned the immediate respect of then “up and coming” peers including Cody Canada, Mike McClure, Jason Boland, and other cohorts of the revitalizing Texas and Red Dirt circuits (now electrifying audiences nationwide.)
Fans anxiously awaited the August 2005 release of Stoney LaRue-the Red Dirt Album, which hit the Billboard sales charts in its debut week. A far cry from the mixing trailer on the cliff, The Red Dirt Album was recorded with a tight circle of players and professionals in a studio setting. The record was a pinnacle effort for LaRue and has inarguably established his triple threat status as a truly gifted vocalist, player, and performer.
In 2006, Stoney released an addition to the famed Live at Billy Bob’s series. His live single, “Oklahoma Breakdown” topped the Texas charts for over four weeks and has ignited Stoney’s powerful support as an artist not to be missed. Armed with golden ear musicianship, an amusing wit, and soulful magnetism, LaRue’s shows are infused with an uplifting quality, a cathartic barroom brand of spirituality, where venues are complimented for good bar “feng shui,” and where time and dimension can be traversed via emotive lyrics and melodic riffs. A charismatic performer, LaRue’s flawless vocals can draw a crowd to a open mouth level of sonic mesmerization, and next have them singing “Forever Young” so loudly that you can’t hear anything else.
Ashley Ray
Ashley Ray grew up outside Lawrence, Kansas, on a farm so remote the options for getting in trouble were pretty limited. “I couldn’t sneak out,” she laughs. “My parents would hear me drive away. I was in the country.” So when the elementary school sent home a notice about guitar lessons, it seemed like a decent diversion from back-roads life, and Ashley showed up at her first lesson with a “$50 cheap guitar from a pawn shop,” determined to learn. “I honestly don’t know what made me want to do it,” she says. “No one else in my family plays an instrument. But my mom tells me I used to sit by the stereo when I was 3, and put my head up against the speaker. Music was always on in our house. It was everything.”
Ashley’s folks might not be musicians themselves, but they are every day blue collar heroes. Mom’s a UPS driver—“She's done everything from working the counter to driving those big ol’ brown trucks. She's about 5'5” and 115 pounds soakin’ wet, yet she's the strongest woman that I'll ever know,” says Ashley—and her father, who passed away in the fall of 2006, was a construction worker. “He built everything he had from the ground up, from houses and car engines to what he wanted most in life: a beautiful and very loving family.”
What they both built in Ashley was a strong Heartland work ethic -- and then they gave her a set of early influences that’s hard to beat: “My parents loved Bob Seger, Fleetwood Mac, Keith Whitley, James Taylor. And we knew it was Saturday morning cleaning day when Reba was on.” But it was a Patty Loveless album, When Fallen Angels Fly, that made Ashley want to be a singer. “I loved every song,” she says. “I wish I’d made that album.” She’d started writing by the time she was 10, trying her hand at fragments of poetry that never quite became a whole song. For a while, she was so shy she’d only sing while facing the wall. In high school, she’d ditch the parties after football games to coop up in her room and practice. She played talent shows, sang in choir, sat in with bands made up of men twice her age.
No one was shocked when, after graduating high school, Ashley left everything behind and moved to Nashville. The first person in her family to strike out on her own, she enrolled in Belmont University to earn a business degree and help ease the transition—but she had no intention of giving herself something to fall back on. “The point of school was to come here and meet people.”
• • •
Today, Ashley’s musical influences extend past the classics of her past to powerful singer-songwriters like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. “I’m a fan of artists, not huge sing-from-your-belly singers,” Ashley explains. And you wanna talk career goals? Try this: “In my wildest dreams I would write one with Dolly Parton, jam with the Dixie Chicks, sing one with Lee Ann Womack, drink one with Bob Seger, and roll one with Willie.”
She’s well on her way. The formerly bashful Kansas girl has already shared a stage with massive acts like Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert and Cross Canadian Ragweed, in addition to a 40-city jaunt with Eric Church, firing up audiences with a voice as unexpected as spiked sweet tea. Most recently she was on the first Country Throwdown Tour with shows across the nation and just signed her first sponsorship deal with Red Stag by Jim Beam. And though her tunes may feature a lot of what she calls “cussin’ and drinkin’,” Ashley’s heart runs much deeper. Leaving home, fighting through the circus of Nashville and coping with the loss of a parent—this is no wilting prairie flower. The chick’s a steel magnolia if there ever was one. “My songs are about strength,” she says. “Like everybody else, I’ve been through some hard times and had my heart broken a few times, but music is what helped me pick myself back up and just get through it. I hope that my music will do the same for other people.”
So don’t be surprised if, every now and again, Ashley writes about something that pretty little girls aren’t supposed to. In a genre where men can do all the sinnin’ they want, there’s still a taboo against women revealing their flaws—and that’s something Ashley’s determined to fight. “The double standard sucks,” she admits. “Because I write real songs, about real things that I’ve done. It’s music. It’s therapy. You put the truth into a song, and I guarantee somebody around the world’s gonna relate to it, whether it’s ten people or ten thousand.”
Ashley’s folks might not be musicians themselves, but they are every day blue collar heroes. Mom’s a UPS driver—“She's done everything from working the counter to driving those big ol’ brown trucks. She's about 5'5” and 115 pounds soakin’ wet, yet she's the strongest woman that I'll ever know,” says Ashley—and her father, who passed away in the fall of 2006, was a construction worker. “He built everything he had from the ground up, from houses and car engines to what he wanted most in life: a beautiful and very loving family.”
What they both built in Ashley was a strong Heartland work ethic -- and then they gave her a set of early influences that’s hard to beat: “My parents loved Bob Seger, Fleetwood Mac, Keith Whitley, James Taylor. And we knew it was Saturday morning cleaning day when Reba was on.” But it was a Patty Loveless album, When Fallen Angels Fly, that made Ashley want to be a singer. “I loved every song,” she says. “I wish I’d made that album.” She’d started writing by the time she was 10, trying her hand at fragments of poetry that never quite became a whole song. For a while, she was so shy she’d only sing while facing the wall. In high school, she’d ditch the parties after football games to coop up in her room and practice. She played talent shows, sang in choir, sat in with bands made up of men twice her age.
No one was shocked when, after graduating high school, Ashley left everything behind and moved to Nashville. The first person in her family to strike out on her own, she enrolled in Belmont University to earn a business degree and help ease the transition—but she had no intention of giving herself something to fall back on. “The point of school was to come here and meet people.”
• • •
Today, Ashley’s musical influences extend past the classics of her past to powerful singer-songwriters like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. “I’m a fan of artists, not huge sing-from-your-belly singers,” Ashley explains. And you wanna talk career goals? Try this: “In my wildest dreams I would write one with Dolly Parton, jam with the Dixie Chicks, sing one with Lee Ann Womack, drink one with Bob Seger, and roll one with Willie.”
She’s well on her way. The formerly bashful Kansas girl has already shared a stage with massive acts like Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert and Cross Canadian Ragweed, in addition to a 40-city jaunt with Eric Church, firing up audiences with a voice as unexpected as spiked sweet tea. Most recently she was on the first Country Throwdown Tour with shows across the nation and just signed her first sponsorship deal with Red Stag by Jim Beam. And though her tunes may feature a lot of what she calls “cussin’ and drinkin’,” Ashley’s heart runs much deeper. Leaving home, fighting through the circus of Nashville and coping with the loss of a parent—this is no wilting prairie flower. The chick’s a steel magnolia if there ever was one. “My songs are about strength,” she says. “Like everybody else, I’ve been through some hard times and had my heart broken a few times, but music is what helped me pick myself back up and just get through it. I hope that my music will do the same for other people.”
So don’t be surprised if, every now and again, Ashley writes about something that pretty little girls aren’t supposed to. In a genre where men can do all the sinnin’ they want, there’s still a taboo against women revealing their flaws—and that’s something Ashley’s determined to fight. “The double standard sucks,” she admits. “Because I write real songs, about real things that I’ve done. It’s music. It’s therapy. You put the truth into a song, and I guarantee somebody around the world’s gonna relate to it, whether it’s ten people or ten thousand.”
