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“Gorgeous... what a voice!”
“On this fierce collection of gutbucket country, Ashley Ray tells stories with unapologetic candor about herself and her people”
NEWS
Industry Ink: Heartland, Del McCoury, Casting Crowns, Ashley Ray (MusicRow Magazine)
Ashley Ray Releases “Break My Heart” Featuring Ruston Kelly, Friday, June 16 (Press Release)
OUT NOW - Ashley Ray Releases New Single "Married" (Press Release)
Ashley Ray Releases Autobiographical Music Video For "Just A House" (Press Release)
‘Pauline’: Top 10 Country, Folk, and Americana Albums of 2020 (The Boston Globe)
Ashley Ray’s ‘Pauline’ is #26 on NPR’s 50 Best Albums of 2020
Ashley Ray’s ‘Pauline’ Leads NPR’s World Cafe Playlist For August 26
Ashley Ray’s Pauline named one of NPR’s All Songs Considered Top 9 Albums Of The Week
LISTEN: Ashley Ray, “Lawrence, Kansas” (The Bluegrass Situation)
Ashley Ray Delivers Acclaimed Autobiographical Album Pauline, Friday, Aug. 14
CMT Exclusive Premiere: Ashley Ray’s Acoustic “Pauline” Performance Video
Ashley Ray Ready to Make Waves with New Record Pauline (Saving Country Music)
Premiere: Ashley Ray Electrifies on “Pauline” (Guitar Girl Mag)
Country Music Picks: Must-Hear New Songs from Ashley Ray, Breland, and Elijah Ocean (Rolling Stone)
BIOGRAPHY
Ashley Ray sings us through the stories of finding our way to ourselves in her new album Animal. She experientially knows there is a choice women must make. Regardless of age, or season of life, the question of “Who am I, really?” seems to arise and provoke an often-radical reassessment. Will I spend the rest of my days tied to the roles, and rituals that were given to me by culture, religion, and the generation of women before me, or do I step out and into my chosen life, a life that bids me to claim my own personal authority and exercise it?
Ray does not hold back as she narrates her story beginning with the agony of facing the reality that divorce was the only way forward in a marriage that held no space for her to become a mother. In the first single released, "Married” lays bare her experience, reckoning with a relationship that could not survive her hopes and desires, leaving her to choose what seems counterintuitive as she croons, “I want a divorce, ‘cause I wanna be married.” It was a choice, if you will, for herself, her truest desires, over the ritual and rules of a marriage poorly formed and unable to give her space to evolve. Ray says, “I got to the point where I was in the shower always crying, telling myself that maybe I could bite the bullet and be okay with not being a mom, but my body yearned for it so, and in my bones, I knew I could not stay. This record is about living and not simply surviving. It was the shift that began my return to myself. Thank God I had people who would sit in the room with me and listen and help me bring these songs to life.”
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“‘Break My Heart,’ Ashley Ray featuring Ruston Kelly: Ashley Ray could sing me anything and I’d love it - there’s this broken grit to her voice, pure restless emotion. She just happens to be an exquisite songwriter too (props to an Alanis Morissette reference in this song, always a soft spot for me). Paired with Ruston Kelly, dirt emo king, it’s a lovelorn chefs kiss.”
“Ray puts her songcraft front and center, tracing through her family lineage and her own personal timeline to emerge with an album that spills with detail, candor, and confession.”
“Ray has already demonstrated many times over that she can create a moving piece of music... The entire album – but ‘Just a House,’ in particular... is a love letter to her family”
“Ashley’s voice is wickedly visceral, nuanced with a sense of elegance, yet almost primal in its passion. Similar to a female Buddy Miller, this is a voice at once fragile, poignant, haunting, and warm”