Ray Grant Biography

Ray Grant Biography Ray Grant came of age during the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam War while living in an urban industrial enclave on Chicago’s South Side that was both brutal and endearing. Both heavily influenced his music. Growing Up in Chicago’s Back of the Yards Born Raymond Gandurski on Jan. 31, 1951, singer-songwriter Ray Grant is the son of a Polish father and Italian mother. Frank Gandurski worked for Automatic Electric, later renamed GTE/Sprint, for 46 years and made pizzas at night to support his wife Rose and their three children. They lived in a third-floor tenement on 44th Street but Grant composed and wrote about 43rd Street, which was where everyone hung out. The track describes Chicago’s Back of the Yards, a tough, South Side neighborhood whose claim to fame was the legendary Union Stockyards. The four-square-mile area running from 39th Street on the north to 55th on the South Side was the perfect setting for Grant’s narrative stories — a working class neighborhood struggling to survive. The setting would later influence the universal appeal and hometown themes of his music, much like the blue jean street life made famous by artists like Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash. On the South Side, everyone played the accordion. At the behest of his father, Grant took lessons too, but he says, “My teacher was pretty famous around town, Eddie Blazonczyk. Every lesson, he was like, ‘Ray, you have to count the beats.’ I just didn’t get it. I couldn’t read notes. I couldn’t get the timing down.” Grant didn’t have to. He could hear the music in his head. Growing up Catholic, Grant attended Sacred Heart Grammar School followed by St. Rita High School. As a teenager, he never felt like he fit in. He was a sharp contrast to his older brother Joe who was, in Grant’s words, “a magnificent scholar and someone I look up to to this day. He’s made himself a brilliant career too.”

While Grant wasn’t a good student at St. Rita’s, he loved music. He snapped up his first guitar — for $3 — from a “buddy” of his. “I would play songs in my head. If I heard a song, I could make it work on guitar. I would sit in the front pew during Mass and watch the guitarist’s fingers as he played,” he says. He also mimicked great musicians of his time. When Grant turned 15, he was taken under the wing of Al Ellis, owner of National Men's Wear on 47th Street, a men’s clothing store known for service and custom tailoring. Ellis saw something in Grant. He taught him every aspect of the business — from tailoring to selling to the secrets behind great customer service, even helping Grant buy his first car. (Years later, Grant would manage the store after Ellis’s death.) By the time Grant was 17, his accordion teacher had heard about the “young guy in the neighborhood who could really play music” and asked him to teach at his studio, not realizing it was his former student. Many musical influences shaped Grant’s visceral, hometown style, including: Neil Diamond (who Grant would later impersonate in Las Vegas), BB King, Kenny Rogers, Paul McCartney, Patti LaBelle, Kenny G, and, more recently, Ed Sheeran.

The Vietnam War, Love and Neil Diamond In 1969, Grant enlisted in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. After being released for an honorable medical discharge, he came home and did what a lot of servicemen did: fell in love. He balanced his marriage to wife Karen, was in the active reserves for five years and worked a job with Emery Air Freight. Grant learned every aspect of the business — just as he did when he worked for Ellis. He eventually opened his own air freight company, taking several people with him from his former company. Then, with the Air Cargo Deregulation Act of 1977, he sold out and found himself unemployed. All the while, Grant continued to make music and desperately worked at making a name for himself in the music industry — as tough a challenge as the South Side neighborhood he grew up in. Grant placed his bet on a tried-and-true act, a Neil Diamond Revue, even taking it to Las Vegas during the '80s with an eight-piece band. His father attended a performance. It was the first time Frank Gandurski saw his son perform and proved to be one of Grant’s proudest moments. Grant says performing in a tribute band was a mistake. He continued to write his own music — even performing some of it under the Neil Diamond cover — but his songs remained in the shadows of his tribute performances. Also around this time, he decided to return his Cadillac which was under lease, a move that would later turn into a 33-year career. For a second time, someone would see something in Grant that he didn’t see in himself. The dealership owner, the first African- American minority owner for a Cadillac franchise, asked him to sell for him. Grant responded, “Me? A car salesman? Not gonna happen.” Several weeks later, the owner

asked him to lend a hand at the dealership’s tent sale. Grant went, liked it, went through the certification process, and became general manager. Grant didn’t know it, but Ellis’s lessons on salesmanship prepared him for a career with Cadillac in sales and leasing.

Ray Grant Becomes an Independent Music Maker — And Gets a Grammy Nomination The realization that doing someone else’s music casts doubt on one’s own music led Grant to write, record and release his own album on his independent record label, Stat Records just outside Chicago in New Lenox, Ill. In 1990, the album It’s About Time debuted. Most of the tracks almost never saw the light of day, but one song was enough to earn a Grammy nomination in 1991 in the “Best Male Pop Vocal Performance” category. The song hit No. 56 on the charts for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, sitting between well-known artist Sting for “Island of Souls” and Tom Waits “It’s All Right With Me.” One of Chicago’s most famous columnists, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Irv Kupcinet, wrote: “A young Chicago singer Ray Grant is getting his long overdue break with his song ‘It’s About Time.’ “ Grant met many famous people at the Grammys, including Aaron Neville and the Neville Brothers, who became a role model for the type of tenacity needed to make it in the music business. Another track on the album,“43rd Street.” chronicled the street Grant grew up on in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Grant’s band had seven members.

And, Then, It’s Over What seems like a dream come true suddenly ended. It was the '90s and Grant was never home for his three children and wife. While his success had given them a big house on a couple acres in Orland Park, Ill., it also had robbed them of a father/husband. Grant exits at the height of his success to work close to home and be there to watch his two daughters and one son grow up, attend college and start their own families. In 2003, Grant’s father passed away. A little more than a decade later, a random Amazon review sums up what most people feel when they hear Grant’s music: “This person missed his calling -- a terrific voice and great arrangements, seems another talent fell through the cracks because of not knowing the right people to promote his work … it’s fantastic.”

On June 6, 2018, Grant’s Italian mother, 95, passed away. Some of her last words to him changed the trajectory of his life: “We never give up. I expect you to do the same.” Grant says: “I realized, when she said this, that the most important things in life are family and to never, ever give up. I wrote a tribute to her on the inside cover of the album. I needed to finish what I started.”

New Albums — and Serious Interest From One of the “Big Six” Record Labels In October 2018, Grant releases 27. It’s the comeback album of the year with reconfigured tracks Grant recorded 27 years prior on It’s About Time, including his Grammy-nominated title track. Grant even runs into Jeff Luif, founder of Star Trax Recording, and hires him to lay down the tracks for Falling Star. Grant reimagines his musical roots and writes song after song reflecting on life’s journey in the album Falling Star, an album that also has caught serious attention from one of the “Big Six” record labels that describes Grant’s fusion of blues, jazz, folk and classic pop and rock as “real” and “relevant.” Both albums bookend a career at different peaks. More than that, Grant’s resurgence becomes a story for many “everyday” people — not billionaires seeking public office or movie megastars or wealthy business titans. He is “the people’s” singer whose songs honor the dreams and lives of real people.

Backup Singer Biographies

Shynell Owen Backup Singer, Falling Star Music has been a constant for Shynell Owen. At 3 years old, she began recording tracks on cassette tapes alongside her mother. She sang in the church choir and was recognized for her vocals by the Illinois Music Education Association, including a commendation in the jazz category. Owen’s performance career after high school included final callbacks for the popular television show Glee and Broadway national tours such as Wicked and Cats, all while she performed professionally off Broadway. In 2012, she joined Ray Grant’s 12-person Neil Diamond tribute band, Diamond Rush. In addition to being one of the female backup singers, known as The Sparklers, she also created the band's Facebook page and, for a short while, even assumed a stint as stand-in band manager.

A year later, after cycling through various musicians, the band was solid and ready to perform throughout Chicago. Shortly thereafter, Owen moved to Iowa where she lived for the next four years, working for Graceland University's theater department. She says: “Ray always made us feel just as important as he was. I moved back to Illinois this year and we picked up almost right where we left off except this time there was no longer a band. Grant's solo career has taken off, and Sky Legge and I were the lucky ones to continue on with him, singing little ditties in the background.” Owen and Legge’s ominous harmonies back Ray's solid voice throughout his Falling Star album on tracks “Long time ago,” “Happier Times,” “Last Song,” “Last Thing on My Mind,” and “Addicted.”

Sky Legge Backup Singer, Falling Star Since before she was born, Sky Legge was on stage and in the midst of live music. Her mother was expecting her when their band toured throughout New Mexico and Arizona, performing music nearly every weekend. Her earliest memories are band practices in the family’s living room and dancing the night away with friends at benefit dances featuring her parents' band. From a young age, she was directly involved in music: school choirs, playing the clarinet and bass clarinet in concert band, and the baritone saxophone in jazz band. Her mother also managed and executed a music festival in Silverton, Colorado for 23 years. Legge performed in countless Silverton Theater musicals and talent shows. She says: “I was always around great artists and eclectic collections of music. Live music is something that is embedded in my DNA.” Throughout college and even after, she took a break from performing. “Life and work seem to do that to your passions, sometimes,” she says. She pined to be back on stage. In 2010, she moved from Colorado to Chicago, became a lead singer of an original rock band and auditioned as a backup vocalist for Ray Grant’s Neil Diamond Tribute in 2012. During the time working with Ray on the Diamond Rush project, Legge worked on everything from social media to organizing photographers to stage outfits. She also worked directly with promoters to secure shows. Legge says: “After singing with Grant for several years, I just kind of fell in sync with his style. I learned to read his changes and knew what he expected to hear. It made recording the backing vocals on Falling Star a blast. On my first listen through the songs, I could hear in my head what Ray would want, what his style was, almost as if it was already there. He gave us a lot of freedom to collect our ideas and try things out

with harmonies and parts. It was a blast and fit together like puzzle pieces. I am very thankful for the opportunity."

About 27 Ray dedicated 27 to, in his words, “All who dream. All who dare to cross the line to break the rules.” The album — re-sculpted after a nearly three-decade hiatus from music — was a bookend for two important moments in Ray’s life: His 1991 Grammy nomination for “It’s About Time” and the death of his mother, Rose M. Gandurski, June 6, 2018. Rose’s passing provided Ray with the inspiration and startling realization that passions are not bounded by time and place and that as long as we walk this earth, we have the obligation to live our purpose regardless of what others say. After spending weeks rearranging the music, Ray hit the studio with some of his original band members, entering what would be the most creative period of his career. On the heels of 27 came the original songs written and recorded by Ray and produced on his own record label, Stat Records with Star Trax in Homewood, Ill.

“43rd Street”: A powerful track where vocals and saxophone duet throughout. “My boys are walkin’/It’s time to make a scene . . . It’s time for another showdown/In the 43rd street line.” He sings: “Well, Vietnam came/And Vietnam went/So did all my boys/Why these streets are calling for/Men who left as boys.” An instrumental version of the song appears later on the album. “Heart’s Last Love”: An exuberant throw-down of classic pop sound and jazz. Unlike the traditional love song, the storyline acknowledges the one-way love a person feels toward someone who has been betrayed by another: “Heart’s last love/He took from you/I know.” “It’s About Time”: A soulful, seductive title track masterfully reconfigured from the original soundtrack album. The song was originally nominated for a Grammy in 1991. A brightness of hope punctuates the lyrics. “Don’t Tell Me How to Run My Band”: The lyrics reveal Ray’s tough neighborhood style where standing your ground could mean the difference between life and death. The song was written after a band member went head-to-head with Ray on the original album. “It’s You”: A folk ballad sound about things left unsaid and undone with someone you love: “Thinkin’ about the things I’ve done/Hurtin’ inside/Don’t know where to run/I feel so bad/Can’t eat or sleep/I’m goin’ mad/And the pain inside won’t keep/It’s you.”

“My Dream”: The backup harmony creates a '50s feel. “My Dream” shows the emerging dualities of Ray’s music. Here, we hear soulful reflection colliding with hope: “Life is a gift of who you are/Your dreams can take you to the stars.” “It’s My Music”: Acoustically driven, this song reveals the “why” behind Ray’s return to music. Great artists like Morgan Freeman, who was an off-Broadway actor for most of his life, and Bowl of Cherries author Millard Kaufman, who published his first book at age 90, are testimony to those who simply do not quit and who sometimes reach their pinnacle later in life. This song is a manifesto for all who believe the best is yet to come in their lives and careers, no matter their age. “Long Hard Climb”: A haunted blend of rock and folk, this autobiographical track tells the story of how we meet people along the way of life while we ourselves may feel stuck in one place. “I do believe in forever/It’s a place where lovers find/And I know/I know we can make that long hard climb.”

About Falling Star An everyman’s compilation of songs with folk, rock roots, contemporary rock, blues and jazz all showing up in different numbers, Falling Star borrows heavily from nature — conjuring images of rain, snow, stars, mountains, even flower as metaphors. The tracks form a story arc about life’s journey marked by imperfect decisions, lost love, failures and successes, and small moments of beauty that remain with us forever. Ray’s songs remind us that our brokenness is a shared truth not to hide, but to embrace and take with us with hope and pride. “My Mind’s on Colorado”: The intro triggers your mind and senses to get into the lyrics and beauty of this song, imagining the mountains of Colorado. The song was written after Ray returned from a trip he took there. He was overcome by views of majestic beauty and quickly set to work translating it into music: “The snow in Colorado/Brings streams of crystal lights/The flowers cover fields/That hurts your eyes.” The poetry of Colorado’s beauty becomes a metaphor for people who have and haven't been there to experience the beauty of this state. Colorado/You and me . . . From Aspen, Vail and Cripple Creek.” The lyrics even give a shout out to the Air Force Academy, the branch of service Ray served in during the Vietnam War. “Falling Star”: Ray’s sultry bass vocals clearly steps forward in this title track: “Like the falling stars you seldom see/You wish your dreams come true.” The lyrics were based on a personal experience. “Now I’m all dressed up/I got nowhere to go/And I don’t know what to do.”

“Long Time Ago”: This song is a hard-driving retrospective on how relationships change with the passage of time. It was written to describe the sadness Ray felt the day his wife left. “Long Time Ago” uses staccato lines to reflect small moments slipping through our hands like water: “Skies were blue/We were young/Our lives had just begun.” A little later: “People come/People went/Working jobs/Without a cent” and “Relationships are like the night/They come and go/They are the things we know.” “Long Time Ago” is also about self-forgiveness: “I’m just a man/I just did what I can/From a long time ago.” “Happier Times”: “Happier Times” is a song that came from an emotional struggle to a place of peace, a place where we finally let go of regret and doubt: “Places that I have seen/Are the places I want to stay/You know I never meant to hurt you/Never wanted to do the things that I’d done.” The steady beat in the background and chorus reinforce the theme of letting go: “I never meant to hurt you/These are happier times.” “Universe”: The song leads with a quick electric intro (imagine a light saber in the dark) with Ray’s throaty bass pressing down hard in quick half-time rhythm. Again, we see time marching forward in our lives whether we are ready or not — a consistent theme in Falling Star and one that most people think about daily: “Universe wasn’t meant to be/No effort/No time to know.” The track ends with hope that the universe around us will help get us where we need to be — if only we allow it: “Universe will guide you/Open up/Let it in.” “Last Song”: With a full band sound pushing the acoustic guitar and vocals out front, “Last Song” reminds us how hard it is to find the right words when relationships end. There is, after all, always one more thing to say after the big goodbye, isn’t there? The lyrics beg Jesus to help — but can’t find Him anywhere: “I’m living on memories/They're stuck in my head/I can’t write this last song.” You hear the desperate hurt of unresolved issues in Ray’s melancholy, gritty bass tone juxtaposed with angel soprano voices provided by his backup singers. “Last Thing On My Mind”: A hymn-like number borrowing heavily from gospel and classic R&B: “It’s a lesson/Too late for the learnin’/Made of sand/Made of sand.” The lyrics reveal the uncomfortable truth we face in the quiet of night, when we think about what we could have done differently and, in our minds, reimagine the outcome: “Underneath my feet/The subway’s rumblin’/Underground/And tumblin’ down” . . . “I could have loved you better/I didn’t mean to be unkind/No, that was the last thing on my mind.” “Addicted”: Set in even time, the steady rhythm paints a picture of two people acknowledging the relationship is over but with one realizing it will never really be over for them: “Like the junkie on juice/I can’t cut you loose from my mind/I’m addicted to you.” Background singers give the crescendo segue to the chorus a heartbreaking insistence that love endures even when we have to move on.

“Madagascar”: A bluesy number with a heavy downbeat, the song immediately cuts to clear imagery — real birds twittering in the background open the song with a rising crescendo and, suddenly, you feel morning, sleepily stretch and awaken to endless blue sky: “There’s somethin’ that I wrote/I don’t have a note/It's a place and a time called Madagascar blue.” The song is about life as it unfolds — whether you are ready for what comes your way or not: “Ain’t nothing you can do/You’re in Madagascar blue.” “Working Girl”: Thankfully, movements like #MeToo and Time’s Up have revealed the challenges and issues faced by women and spiraled those realities into public discourse. “Working Girl” chronicles the life of a working girl who works hard, plays hard — and who is in control of her own life. Ray’s interpretation that women are their own boss shows in the lyrics: “You wake up/You get dressed/Well, it’s time you’re heading to work/You punch in/You clock out/It’s your life/Your boss is a jerk/You’re a working girl in a working world all day/You’re a working girl/Now it’s time to play.” This number shows a woman doesn’t need to be a Fortune 500 CEO, political maverick, supermodel or movie star to have a voice.