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SPEAKER: As I recall, it was about, what? Eight years ago that Ashes in My Whiskey came out, something like that, six years ago, which was a CD that or a record that a lot of people hailed as the return of Ray & Glover. And back then you said, wait a minute, we never went anywhere.

DAVE RAY: Yeah, we never went anywhere. We had made one previous to that for a local guy, Mark Trehus who has produced the last three we did, called Legends in Their Spare Time. But that was put out intentionally in small numbers. I mean, we pressed 1,000 copies of it or something just to indicate that we weren't on life support yet.

SPEAKER: So how do you-- how do both of you pay the bills? What are your day jobs?

DAVE RAY: Well, I don't know what Tony's doing right now. He does some writing and some other, I guess what you'd classify as research or editorial projects. I am an insurance agent. I've been doing that for 15 years. I bought my father's agency in 1981 and did it for a long time.

Now, the first of this year, I merged it with another agency out in North St. Paul. And I will make a living off music now. I intend to.

SPEAKER: And is that because of the insurance market changing or because of something in Dave Ray changing?

DAVE RAY: It's something in me that changed. I've been working closely with John Beech. And he's a piano player on the Three Bedroom Ramblers record that we made and an old buddy of mine. And he's a very good player and very knowledgeable musically. And he's been making me think a lot more.

And as a result of that thinking, I am motivated to try to become a better player instead of a better performer per se, if you follow what I mean. I'm looking to play. I'm looking to play more complex kinds of music with a better execution and with a more thoroughly musical approach to it than I have ever felt in the past or than I felt for a long time, I'll put it that way.

SPEAKER: Is that kind of a grown up thing.

DAVE RAY: I don't know if it's a grown up thing or if it's just like a fish or cut bait thing. I mean, I've been-- it's almost like I feel like I've been dinking around playing for years and half assed making it and not making it kind of a thing. I never felt like laying the instrument down.

I never felt like quitting. I never have quit. I've never given up in disgust because I couldn't make money or get booked or something like that. I always just found something else to do and then played for the pure joy of it.

Well, the joy, it's like some kind of wild addiction. The joy now require-- the joy of playing in-- in order to produce the joy of playing now is requiring more and more attention from me to detail. In other words, I want to put more effort into it so that I can get more out of it.

SPEAKER: What album do you like most as you look back?

DAVE RAY: Well, I like the recent stuff. I'm actually, well, I wouldn't-- I guess I've used the term embarrassed. I'm not really embarrassed by it because I mean, what the hell, I was 19 and all that.

SPEAKER: The early stuff?

DAVE RAY: Yeah. But there's just no comparison between that and the more recent stuff. It just shows a much deeper understanding of it. And it's better, better tone, and better vocals, better everything.

["ASHES IN MY WHISKEY" PLAYING]

(SINGING) She put ashes in my whiskey

Strychnine in my glass

She put ashes in my whiskey

Strychnine in my glass

I went out car riding with them

They carried me too fast

She put castor oil in my coffee

The black drops tea

She put castor oil in my coffee

The black drops in my tea

I swear that they're trying

To rid the Earth of me.

SPEAKER: Most of them are not your own, I mean, not your own writing, your own composition?

DAVE RAY: Well, I'd say the bulk of them are not. Off these last three records that we've done, there's probably two tunes a record that I wrote, and maybe another, well, all of them, of course, I modified. They're the same tune lyrically, melodically maybe, but they've got different changes to them or I've changed some of the words in them.

Sometimes I change the words because I can't sing the original words. Like, for instance, on a tune that we just recorded called Pick Poor Robin Clean by a guy named Luke Jordan, the verse is it's about a gambling and about fleecing somebody. So the verse is "Get off my money, don't get funny, because I'm a nigger that knows how to figure."

So, I mean, I had a-- I can't sing that. So I changed it to a white guy who knows the big lie. Do something to maintain the authenticity of the thing, but move it to a acceptable level of verbiage.

In the old days, see, I never made that distinction. I sang those "Titanic" and "Gallows Pole," "Fannin Street" songs and didn't realize that what I was doing was aping a cultural stance that I had no right to. As a result, a lot of people got mad at me for doing that. And I thought I was just operating within the confines of the métier or the milieu or whatever you want to call it.

SPEAKER: You thought you were being genuine or true to the music in a way.

DAVE RAY: Yeah. But now I've changed my position on that many, many years ago.

SPEAKER: And you recognize that it really isn't any of your business to be singing--

DAVE RAY: It's none of my business. And blues doesn't have anything to do with being Black, I mean, per se. Yeah, it was invented by Black people. It was pursued by Black. But, I mean, I'm not going to put up with hearing that anymore about how it's Black music. It's not. It's still predominantly performed by Black people, and it's still revered by Black people as their heritage and all that, but that doesn't mean I can't do it.

SPEAKER: Did you ever want to move away from Minnesota in all of this? I mean, I think, you did. Didn't you move to New York at some point?

DAVE RAY: I lived in New York in 1961, '62. I lived in California in '69, '70. I lived up in Northern Minnesota for about 10 years in the '70s, eight years. And you can't move.

Once you're born someplace, unless something really horrible happens, that's where you end up. That's my philosophy. You can try to get away, and you can make up things about how you've got to move and you can't take it anymore, you always end up back there.

I don't care who you talk to, they all go back. I know people that were born in New York City who actually moved back to New York City, if you can believe such a thing. So I don't think you do move away.

Besides, I like it around here. I like that a hell of a lot better when there were about 100,000 less people. But that's life.

SPEAKER: Were any of those moves based on music?

DAVE RAY: Oh, yeah. I went to New York to play. I went to California to play. I went to Wisconsin to play. I went up North to make records. I had a studio up there. So I'd say they were all based on music.

SPEAKER: But not the most typical career path for someone not exactly trying to make a commercial success in the music business.

DAVE RAY: No, I mean, I just never got it. I never figured out how to do it. And I didn't spend any time trying to figure out how to do it. And I didn't listen to anybody who tried to tell me how to do it.

So I have no one to blame but myself. I mean, in terms if you're going to blame somebody for not making a million bucks at this, I guess I'm the only person you could blame. But I don't really think about it that way.

SPEAKER: Because it's really not the issue, is it?

DAVE RAY: It's not the issue. And I I've always been able to get enough money together to where I wasn't killing myself. And I frankly, I'd rather just take a pass on playing if I have to substantially, materially change what I'm doing in order to make the

And I've spent enough time playing commercially so that I'm not really enamored of four or five weeks in different airports and all the attendant problems that accompany playing on the road for a living. Talk to guys that are out 250-300 nights a year, man, it's a hassle. It's a hell of a way to go.

["BUDDY BROWN'S BLUES" PLAYING]

(SINGING)

I'm going to get up in the morning

Do like Buddy Brown

Do like buddy brown

I'm going to eat my breakfast

I'm gon' lie back down

Afraid to be here

I don't want to move too much

I don't want to move too much

If I sit right still

I might improve my luck

I was going to say something

I believe I'll hold my tongue

I believe I'll hold my tongue

I'm not sure of my opinion

Or even if I have one

Cancel my newspaper

Disconnect my phone

Disconnect my phone

I'm going to lie right here

Thank God I'm alone

Buddy Brown had the right idea

Man, it sure look good to me

Pillow and blanket

Is all a poor boy needs

I'll get up in the morning

Do like Buddy Brown

Do like Buddy Brown

I'm going to eat my breakfast

I'm gon' lie back down