TERRE HAUTE — Same place. Different time. Same heart. New outlook.
Guitar in hand, Cari Ray stood singing beneath the soft lights of a coffeehouse on Wabash Avenue in Terre Haute last month. More than a decade earlier, she was a nervous college senior, playing her first public gig at the same venue — Coffee Grounds. In both moments, Ray was fulfilling her passion — music.
Back in the mid-1990s, though, she guarded that love. Ray considered majoring in music at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, and participated in vocal and theatrical groups at the school. It came naturally. She’s been singing since her first church solo as a 3-year-old growing up in Rockville. But instead of pursuing a music major, she earned a degree in graphic design and marketing, because “I just never wanted [music] to be like work.”
The kid gloves are off now.
Ray, an Indianapolis marketing consultant by day, is working hard at being a singer-songwriter-recording artist by night. Two and a half years ago, she started performing and writing again, for the first time since her 20s. A year ago, Ray made a plan to eventually earn a living in music.
“I just love it,” she said. “I really do feel like it’s what I’m supposed to be doing.”
This weekend marks a significant step toward that destiny. A CD release party for her new album, “Always On,” was scheduled for Saturday night in Basile Auditorium at the Indianapolis Art Center. Ray wrote every track, and one of the catchiest — “Wrestling With My Angel” — got favorable reviews from listeners on WLHK-FM 97.1 (better known as Hank FM) in Indianapolis. She’s assembled a band for a tour of Indiana and the region this fall.
“The clouds have opened,” Ray said of her second career.
She played in bright, cool October sunshine on the courthouse lawn in Rockville last Sunday. The town square overflowed with visitors to the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival that afternoon. Hometown family and friends recognized Ray, who now lives in Fishers. Many more enjoyed the sound of her pitch-perfect, Gibraltar-solid, alto-soprano voice and guitar work. Some may have heard her sing as a young girl, but Ray’s polished performance impressed the crowd. She sold several “Always On” CDs that day.
“She has more there than a hobby. She has a talent,” said Cathy Harkrider, executive secretary of Parke County Inc., and the mother-in-law of Ray’s sister. “And when people hear her, they want to hear more.”
Ray hears similar comments from people who’ve heard her live, or can’t quit playing her album on their car CD player. What they’re hearing is a mix of country songwriting, with an alt-country or pop Americana feel. The genre-crossing doesn’t worry Ray as much as it does some inside music circles. “It will land where it lands,” she said of the album.
Ernie Mills, a radio personality at Hank FM in Indy, called “Always On” a “big winner” at that country station. Still, the disc notably lacks some staples of country recordings; there are no fiddles or steel guitars. But listeners will hear mandolin, dobro, ukulele and upright bass mixed with electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards, electric bass and drums.
Ray jokes that she “stole” popular Indianapolis singer Jennie Devoe’s rhythm section for the album. It was produced by Greg McGuirk, Devoe’s keyboardist and music director at Bennett Innovations, an Indianapolis firm that typically creates jingles and commercials for corporate clients. Ray asked McGuirk to produce her debut disc. Instead of taking it on as a side project, McGuirk got permission at Bennett Innovations to craft the album in its studios — a rare project for the company.
She quickly impressed the veteran producer and songwriter.
“As I got working with her, I just fell in love with her music,” McGuirk said. “She’s just a wonderful singer and songwriter, and just a fun person to be around.”
Ray had the same effect on the studio musicians. “Each one of them, their eyes just lit up as we got into the teeth of this project,” McGuirk said.
The material held their attention. “She’s a great storyteller,” he said.
Those stories are what drew Ray back into music, feet first this time. “I had these stories that are pretty human stories, and the feedback I got from people … it’s like it made a connection with me.”
The tales, told simply, include a Hoosier feel. On “Red Line,” Ray opens with the line, “Grew up in Indiana, my daddy raised me right; church on Sunday morning and again on Sunday night.” It ends with the pathos of a jilted, broken-hearted lover leaving town. Along similar lines, the album includes one song written during Ray’s St. Mary-of-the-Woods days, “Greyhound,” in which she departs by bus after coming home to a note instead of her boyfriend.
Back then, Ray enjoyed singing and performing in The Woods’ theatrical groups. But she didn’t learn guitar until her senior year. That year, a popular Indiana band heard Ray playing a handful of freshly written songs at a campus homecoming event. The band invited her to open for them at, of course, Coffee Grounds. So she learned three cover songs to go with her three originals, “and got up there with my knees knocking.”
She developed an affection for that eclectic coffeehouse. Ray even put her design skills to use by creating the Coffee Grounds’ first logo for its original owner, George Shumay. A little more than a decade later, she contacted new proprietor Pete Wilson and booked a return performance during, fittingly, The Woods’ homecoming weekend. This time, she was calmer and more focused.
More of her music-making lies ahead, according to her plan.
“I think she’s going to have lots of songs coming out for a long time,” McGuirk predicted.
Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
Finding Cari Ray
Information about Parke County native Cari Ray and her new album, “Always On,” can be found online in various locations:
Web: www.cariray.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/
Cari-Ray/5147761091
Myspace: www.myspace
music.com/cariraymusic
Reverb Nation: www.reverb
nation.com/cariray
Upcoming gigs: Friday, 8 Seconds, Indianapolis, 6 p.m.; Oct. 31, Bertees, Fortville, 8 p.m.; Nov. 5, Mo’s Irish Pub, Noblesville, 9:30 p.m.; Nov. 14, Wagon Wheel Theatre, Warsaw, 8 p.m.
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Music, a lifelong passion, clearly on horizon for Rockville native Cari Ray
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