Blues singer Sugaray Rayford's songs might tackle heavy points, however he desires you to have good time

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The primary sound a listener hears on Sugaray Rayford’s album In Too Deep is a deceptively joyful blast of horns above an endearing Memphis soul-funk groove.

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The opening monitor, Invisible Soldier, is upbeat and danceable. Nevertheless it’s additionally a couple of soldier affected by post-traumatic stress dysfunction. It was written by expat Winnipegger Eric Corne however based mostly on a few of Rayford’s personal experiences throughout his decade-long stint as a marine, together with his bouts of insomnia introduced on by PTSD. It’s one in all a handful of songs on the 2022 album that wraps critical topics with party-ready, blues-soul vibes.

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“This album is mainly out of my diary,” says Rayford, in a cellphone interview with Postmedia whereas on his technique to a gig in Wyoming. “Eric Corne is such a fantastic wordsmith that he was capable of take my tales and switch them into such lovely songs. My thought is that I’d offer you one thing critical however I need to offer you one thing to bounce over. Invisible Soldier may be very funky and really soulful. However if you happen to cease and hearken to what I’m singing about – the identical with Please Take My Hand or Gonna Elevate You Up and Miss Info is one other – the subject material may be very deep. However the track excessive is a superb association and nice music – so that you’re popping your fingers and swinging your hips earlier than you recognize what it’s you’re dancing to.”

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In Too Deep is the second album Rayford has made for 40 Beneath Information, the label based by the now Los Angeles-based Corne. He produced and wrote or co-wrote with Rayford the lion’s share of the songs on the album, which is a follow-up of 2020’s Grammy-nominated Anyone Save Me. The 2 met in Memphis in 2018. On the time, Rayford was at a little bit of a crossroads artistically. He had a formidable historical past within the blues and R&B worlds, having fronted the City Gypsys and Aunt Kizzy’z Boyz, an act that positioned second within the 2006 Worldwide Blues Problem. In 2011, he turned one of many vocalists for the famend classic-blues band The Mannish Boys. Since 2010, he has additionally launched a sequence of solo albums. However with Corne, he discovered a cohort who shared his enthusiasm for exploring the “soul aspect of blues.”

“Nobody is basically doing it,” Rayford says. “There may be plenty of rock-blues and stuff like that, however there actually [aren’t] that many individuals enjoying soul-blues. I bear in mind having a dialog with Otis Clay and Cyril Neville so a few years again they usually mentioned, ‘You might want to do soul-blues as a result of no one is doing it.’ ”

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Rayforth mentioned he needed to choose up the torch from artists which can be now not with us, together with Little Milton and Bobby “Blue” Bland.

“It’s been my mission to carry soul music and soul-blues again the blues,” he says.

Rising up in Texas, soul and blues music was possible thought of a bit of too secular for Rayford’s household. His first publicity to music was by the church in Tyler, Texas, the place he and his brothers grew up in poverty with a single mom. She was a gifted gospel singer and younger Rayford was enlisted at an early age to assist present uplifting music for the congregation. By the age of 5, he was enjoying drums in church. His mom died of most cancers when he was solely 11 and he went to dwell together with his grandmother, who made positive Rayford and his siblings had a day by day dose of each faith and spiritual music. By the point he was a youngster, he was directing a choir that includes a whole lot of singers.

“I took it as a right,” says Rayford, who will play Shaw Millennium Park on Aug. 5 at 8:30 p.m. as a part of the Calgary Worldwide Blues Competition. “It wasn’t till years later that I noticed how particular a few of these individuals had been. Even there, one of many ministers I knew launched me to the blues. He performed guitar. I didn’t understand it was the blues on the time, nevertheless it was undoubtedly the blues. The gospel music was an enormous affect. It locked me into the entire music factor and excited about music with enjoying drums and directing choirs and placing collectively choirs and issues like that. I used to be actually enthusiastic about it. However, by the point I used to be 17, I used to be beginning to get burned out. I used to be working at a nationwide church, an enormous church, and I used to be beginning to get to that time the place it was ‘OK, I want to search out one thing secure that I could make a residing on.’ That’s once I joined the army.”

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Rayford reckons he didn’t play music for the subsequent 17 years after that. When he left the marine corp., the 6’5 future souls-blues belter started working as a bouncer or “cooler” at a tough bar close to San Diego.  One night time, he started playing around and improvising with a band on stage. 

His soon-to-be-girlfriend and future spouse and supervisor, Pamela, was on the bar and was impressed with Rayford’s highly effective and soulful vocals. A couple of years later once they formally started relationship and Rayford was on the lookout for a brand new path in life, she informed him he ought to begin a band.

“I mentioned, ‘No, there’s no life in that and a lot hassle and no cash and blah, blah, blah,’” Rayford says. “However she didn’t need to stop, she didn’t need to hand over. She would take me to jams and signal me up and discover songs and make me be taught them. She was only a driving power.”

Rayford usually likes to deal with critical points in his songs: Miss Info, as an illustration, is concerning the truth-starved political local weather within the U.S. proper now, whereas the rhythmic Please Take My Hand has Rayford and background vocalists singing towards a spare backdrop of hand-claps and cowbell concerning the historical past of the civil rights motion and standing up towards oppression.

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However Rayford has lengthy said that his performances are supposed to be celebratory above all else.

“I don’t actually imagine in concert events, I come to have a celebration, I come to have a very good time and attempt to discover all of the vary of feelings,” he says. “There are just a few covers that I wish to play and fairly just a few surprises that individuals don’t count on me to play. However the principle factor for me is simply having a very good time and the people who find themselves there are having a very good time. That’s why I say it’s a celebration, not a live performance. As a result of once you say live performance, individuals need to come and sit and hear. I don’t need that. It’s not jazz. It’s not classical. It’s blues and soul and it’s meant for booty-shaking and every thing else. You spent the money and time to come back, why come and sit down? You are able to do that at residence listening to the radio or listening to vinyl. When it’s dwell, you come to have. good time. So it’s undoubtedly a celebration.”

Sugaray Rayford performs the Worldwide Blues Competition at Shaw Millennium Park at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 5. Go to calgarybluesfest.com.

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