Wade Ray - Antenna Records - Great Steel

[Greg Cutshaw]

YouTube link to some great Wade Ray tunes with what sounds like Buddy Emmons from the mid sixties and a great steel lead in on the other.


Tears Don't Stain



Meanwhile Back At My House


Greg

[Billy Tonnesen]

When Wade Ray played at "Cowtown" on Vermont Street in Los Angeles, Ca. in the 50's and 60's, he was considered a real Icon of the Country Western scene out here on the West Coast. If anyone had a night off from their gig they would head for Cowtown and Wade Ray. He had a great personality and ambience that just attracted people. After leaving So.Calif. he sort of dropped out of sight except for some appearances on the Ernest Tubb TV show. Wade, IMHO should have been a super star. However in the 60's he was competing with the newer Honky Tonk singers
and his smewhat sophisticated style probably hurt him.

[Jussi Huhtakangas]

Wade was a Cherokee Cowboy in the mid 60's too, with Buddy Emmons, these are probably recorded at that period. Wade played on that rare Cherokee Cowboys solo album and sings a terrific version of Burnt Fingers.

[Greg Cutshaw]

I would post Burnt Fingers and Little Red Wagon but those and so many more are easily found on YouTube. One of the greatest entertainers and you had to be to cut it in vaudeville and the LA house party scene.


Greg

[Joe Casey]

One night I went down to the best western HOF lounge in Nashville to see Curly Chalker and during the first break Curly told me Wade was working as the security guard in the Hotel lobby..I went out and spent about an hour with Wade talking old SCal stuff..Told me he wasn't playing anymore..One of my Idols.I think this was around '78 0r so.

[Mike Neer]

I really love Wade Ray's voice. I have a bunch of different recordings of stuff he did with Noel Boggs on steel and it's just great.

That Western Strings LP is super.

[Howard Kalish]

I too am a big Wade Ray fan. He was a virtuoso fiddle player and had a very cool voice and swinging style. His playing on Willie Nelson’s Country Favorites LP with the Texas Troubadours is one happenin’ lick after another. I’ve stolen a few. I have a great record that features his singing – WalK Softly and Other Country Songs. Wonderful versions of Heart of a Clown, Letters Have No Arms and others.

I got to see him at the steel convention in 1978 and didn’t know anything about him except that he was very good and completely unique. I think he was a deputy sheriff by that point in his life, semi-retired from music. He’s on one of those old ET TV shows with Willie and they do some of those tunes with Charlton and Rhodes. Wild stuff even now.

[Jason Longoria]

there are 2 wade ray 45's on Antenna, I uploaded one side of the second 45 that is not on youtube.

Antenna (1966)
6433 Even At My Best / Two Of The Usual - 66
6435 Tears Don't Stain / Meanwhile Back At My House -66

"Even at my Best"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpA52nygBD0

[Greg Cutshaw]

I also saw him at the '78 convention and he was awesome. He sang "My Mother's Eye's, a slow version of the tune that Jim Murphy played and that Paycheck's band used for a theme song. Got all of his stuff off the blog's too. At his peak, his voice was as good as any megastar as evidenced by his work with ET's T2x4's. He also seemed to enjoy every moment on stage.


Greg

[Roger Shackelton]

Here's Wade singing "It's All Your Fault"



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw80B1AY ... re=related

[Billy Tonnesen]

IMHO, that was Noel Boggs playing Steel on "It's All Your Fault", recorded on the West Coast probably in the 50's.

[Paul Norman]

I am so glad that I met him in Kinston, NC in 1964 playing fiddle with Ray Price and he was Ray's
Road Manager. I didn't know he could sing that good.
Ray Price, Buddy Emmons, Paul Wade, Wade Ray.
What a show.