Donnie Ray (New Album Alert!)

NEW ALBUM ALERT!

MY SOUTHERN SOUL Track List:

Daddy B. Nice notes:

Donnie Ray Aldredge's second album on CDS Records once again features production by Ricky White, which will be as welcome to fans of Ricky White as it will be deplorable to fans of John Ward, Donnie Ray's former producer at Ecko. Donnie Ray's vocals are hard-hitting and energetic, and Tonya Youngblood provides solid back-up.

The most interesting track is "Still Called The Blues". The bluesy vehicle is also the defacto title tune, with its lyrical couplet: "You can call it southern soul / But it's still called the blues." White's usual drawing-attention-to-itself production style remains blissfully near-invisible, letting the music and vocal shine through to potent effect.

Daddy B. Nice's 21st Century PROFILE of Donnie Ray:

--Daddy B. Nice

About Donnie Ray (New Album Alert!)

Donnie Ray Aldredge (aka Donnie Ray) was born in 1959 in Texarkana, Texas.  The Aldredges were a musical family, and by the time he was a teenager Donnie Ray was performing in his father's band.  He excelled as a singer, a multi-instrumentalist and a composer, and he gradually began performing with headliners like Marvin Sease and Millie Jackson when they came through on tour.  

Donnie Ray recorded his debut CD, Let's Go Dancing, for Shreveport, Lousiana-based Suzie Q Records in 2000.  The CD contained his most popular Southern Soul hit single, "A Letter To My Baby."  Are You Ready For Me, his second album, was released in 2003, again on Suzie Q.

In 2005 Donnie Ray moved to Ecko Records in Memphis and recorded his 3rd LP, I'll Be Good To You, which contained the popular single, "It's Just A Party Thing."

Don't Stop My Party (Ecko Records), released the following year, included the well-received radio single, "Sweeter To Me."

The set also featured the single, "Come On, Let's Dance," which would be reissued on the It's BYOB CD years later. The instrumentation and arrangement of "Come On, Let's Dance" was the precursor to Donnie Ray's "Who's Rockin' You?"

The title cut of Donnie Ray's next album, Smooth Operator (published by Ecko in 2007), received widespread airplay throughout the Deep South. The musically-substantive ballad If I Could Do It All Over" debuted at Number One on Daddy B. Nice's Top Ten Singles for April 2007. Donnie Ray also reprised his signature tune, "Letter To My Baby (Part Two)" from his debut disc Let's Go Dancing.

You've Got Me (Ecko, 2008) was less successful and passed without much notice. But Donnie Ray followed it up with a banner year in 2009, beginning in January with his fifth Ecko release, Caught By The Cat.

Charting on Daddy B. Nice's Top Ten "Breaking" Southern Soul Singles (March 09), "This Time The Dog Got Caught By The Cat" was a well-done, fervently-sung rendition of Ms. Jody's contemporary classic, "Your Dog Is Killing My Cat."

"You Keep Snatchin' It Back" gained some favor with deejays and fans, and songs like "Just My Woman And Me" and "I'm Gonna Try Again" provided ample proof that Donnie Ray's collaboration with Ecko songwriters Raymond Moore and John Ward still retained its appeal.

"Just Give Me My Blues" (with April Hill) provided Donnie Ray's once-or-twice-an-album, obligatory blues jam, while "Don't Let Your Pride Overpower Your Love," one of five Donnie Ray-written tracks on the album, also merited notice.

In November of the same year, 2009, Donnie Ray released the even more popular and influential "It's BYOB" on the Ecko label. The title song garnered honors from Daddy B. Nice's Best Of 2009 awards, scoring the #18-Ranked Southern Soul Single of the Year. "It's BYOB" also pulled down Daddy B. Nice's #1 "Breaking" Southern Soul Single for November 2009.

Other distinguished songs from the LP were "Two Places At The Same Time," a mid-tempo cut elevated by Donnie Ray's engaged vocal, and "Love Power," a slow jam in which D.R. stretched out in his most sonorous style.

"I Never Had Nobody To Love Me Like You Do" reinforced an image Donnie Ray had patiently been building through all of his albums, that of a well-mannered young man a young woman would want to take home to her parents. (This image would come to fruition with "I'm Gonna Keep My Love At Home" from 2011's "WHO'S ROCKIN' YOU? CD.)

The CD Who's Rockin' You? arrived in 2011 on the Ecko label, notching the most spectacular hit single of Donnie Ray's career, "Who's Rockin' You?" The title song showcased a subtle, seventies, disco ambience bolstered by a vintage Gamble-Huff, Philly-style arrangement.

Other songs of note included "A Good Woman," a typically smooth, solid Aldredge track,  "I'm Gonna Keep My Love At Home," a melodic, mid-tempo gem featuring a rare duet with an unnamed female singer on the chorus, and "Too Many Mechanics," an embellished but traditional blues treatment with strong lead guitar and spiffy horn charts.

See Daddy B. Nice's "Breaking" Southern Soul Singles for February 2011 ("Who's Rockin' You?"). "Who's Rockin' You was also Daddy B. Nice's #14-ranked Southern Soul Single of 2011.

I'm Goin' Back, Donnie Ray's eighth consecutive release on Ecko Records, arrived in 2012. While no one song made as big a splash as "Who's Rockin' You?", which continued to gobble up radio play throughout the chitlin' circuit, the album contained many singles that gained air play: "I'm Looking For A Woman," "Southern Soul Blues Slide," "A Secret Is So Hard To Keep," "She Was At The Hideaway" and "If We Can't Get It Right."



Scroll down to "Tidbits" for more recent updates.

Song's Transcendent Moment

"It's three o'clock
In the morning,
And I'm just getting in.
There's a man
Coming out my door,
And I want to know
Who he is.

Who's rockin' you
When you ain't rockin' me?
Who's rockin' you
When you ain't rockin' me?"

Tidbits

1.

December 22, 2012: Donnie Ray on YouTube:


Listen to Donnie Ray singing "Who's Rockin' You?" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "A Letter To My Baby" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "I'm Gonna Keep My Love At Home" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "Too Many Mechanics" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "You Keep Snatchin' It Back" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "This Time the Dog Got Caught by the Cat" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "Love Monkey" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "A Good Woman" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "Sexy Lover" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "B.Y.O.B." on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "Who's Rockin' You?" Live Onstage on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "Who's Rockin' You?" Live On Another Stage on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "Seven Long Years" on YouTube.

Listen to an Interview with Donnie Ray courtesy of Beach Music's Darin & Anita.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "I'll Be Good To You" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "Lovers' Paradise" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "Too Close For Comfort" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "She's Already Taken" on YouTube.

Listen to Donnie Ray singing "A Letter To My Baby" Live Onstage on YouTube.

2.

December 29, 2012:

Unlike many of the top performers in the Southern Soul genre whose trajectory has slipped of late, Donnie Ray's career is on an upward curve. His most recent albums have featured his best work. The renewed energy and inspiration first signaled itself in "It's BYOB" and its novel arrangement, which carried over big-time ultimately in "Who's Rockin' You?" DBN

3.

December 29, 2012: DONNIE RAY CD REVIEWS

Daddy B. Nice has written contemporaneous CD reviews of Donnie Ray's work over the years. To read them, go to the "Tidbits" section of Daddy B. Nice's original Donnie Ray Artist Guide.  

4.

From Daddy B. Nice's New CD Reviews:

May 19, 2012:

DONNIE RAY: I'M GOIN' BACK (Ecko) Three Stars *** Solid. The artist's fans will enjoy.

There's nothing as brilliant as "Who's Rockin' You," Donnie Ray's conquering single from 2011, on the artist's new CD, I'm Goin' Back.

See Daddy B. Nice's CD Review of "Who's Rockin' You" in the Donnie Ray Artist Guide, Tidbit #9.

The uptempo "I'm Looking For A Woman," the opening track, sets the standard for the CD: the songwriting is derivative but passable, the musicianship--both singing and background--competent and at times excellent.

"Southern Soul Blues Slide," a fast, guitar-driven blues jam done twice on the CD, raises the formula another notch, giving a so-so track the benefit of veteran musical expertise (rhythm tracks, sequencing, guitar and Hammond B3 organ by John Ward, vocals, guitar and bass guitar by Donnie Ray).

The majority of the songs are written by Donnie Ray Aldredge (Donnie Ray), and "She's A Real Hot Lady" and "I'm Goin' Back," the title track, will sound familiar--too familiar at times--to fans of Donnie Ray's work.

The freshest song on the set is a vintage-sounding Donnie Ray ballad. See Daddy B. Nice's #3 "Breaking" Southern Soul Single for May 2012: "A Secret Is So Hard To Keep." "A Secret" showcases Donnie Ray's ability to render love songs in a tender but lasting manner. The song's arrangement shines, aided by an evocative Hammond organ and a guitar fill containing hints of "A Rainy Night In Georgia," the classic whose tempo the song also echoes.

"Bring Back My Blues" is another blues jam on the order of "Southern Soul Blues Slide," indistinguishable from dozens of Donnie Ray tracks from the past.

"I Remember Those Good Old Days," is a mid-tempo, melodic paean to the past, too familiar to be of much interest, and "Let's Swing Out" is an exercise in jamming, although Donnie Ray brings his unflappable enthusiasm to the vocal.

"Are You Ready For Me" carries a little more melodic heft, but only because it mimics The Staples Singer's "Let's Do It Again" in melody and tempo.

"She Was At The Hideaway" was released a few months ago, the first single from the album, but Southern Soul radio stations have for the most part snubbed it in favor of "Who's Rockin' You," which continues to garner air play more than a year after its release.

"If We Can't Get It Right" has some characteristics of a possibly popular single--a forceful vocal and a memorable melody--as does the ballad "Haven't I Been Good To You."

The CD closes with another stab at "Southern Soul Blues Slide."

Overall, the fast cuts on the Donnie Ray's new disc feature the best background musicianship. If you're into hearing John Ward and Donnie Ray jam on Quinn Golden-era Southern Soul-slash-blues jams, you'll be interested. However, the romantic, slow to mid-tempo cuts ("A Secret Is So Hard To Keep," "Haven't I Been Good To You," "She Was At The Hideaway" and "If We Can't Get It Right") will probably appeal most to Donnie Ray's core audience. For MP3-buyers "A Secret Is So Hard To Keep" is a keeper.

Unlike the Who's Rockin' You? CD, with its rock-and-rolling title track, Donnie Ray's I'm Goin' Back re-furrows old ground rather than plows new, and consequently doesn't contain much to draw new fans. For the best possible first impression, Donnie Ray neophytes are directed to go straight to Who's Rockin' You.

--Daddy B. Nice

Bargain-Priced I'm Goin' Back CD.

Comparison-Priced I'm Goin' Back CD.

Read Daddy B. Nice's Donnie Ray Artist Guide.

5.

August 5, 2014: FROM THE ARCHIVES

DADDY B. NICE'S CD REVIEW OF...

Twin Pick: Donnie Ray, Drowning In My Own Tears, & Best Of Donnie Ray, 10-12-13



October 12, 2013: TWIN PICK
DONNIE RAY: Drowning In My Own Tears (Ecko) And... BEST OF DONNIE RAY (Ecko) Five Stars ***** Can't Miss. Pure Southern Soul Heaven.

So accustomed is your Daddy B. Nice to listening to Donnie Ray Aldredge, I actually picked through each song on the new Drowning In My Own Tears CD muttering, "I like that phrase," "I don't like that phrase," "That's interesting," "I've heard that before, Yes...No...Yes," and so on, more like a working producer than a fan out for a little enjoyment.

And many Southern Soul fanatics will experience the same simultaneous sense of wonder and surprise on the one hand and familiarity and borderline contempt on the other as they mutter and shake their heads through the first two tracks--"Real Good Lover" and "Let's Get This Party Started"--because they have that generic, I'm-aiming-to-be-the-opening-cut-That's-my-mediocre-goal feel to them. (On subsequent listens, they do get better, but you know what I mean.)

Then, on track 3, "Groove Party," Donnie Ray clobbers everybody with a fantastic, get-off-your-chair-and-dance anthem in the Gamble-Huff mode. I'm in awe of Donnie Ray singing in that early-seventies, Philly-disco atmosphere, as he did on his recent smash single, "Who's Rockin' You?" The Philly soul sound brings out a unique, sonorous quality in Donnie Ray's voice that sets him truly apart from other singers.

On the other hand (and negating that theory, to a certain extent), freshness and energy permeate the old-school ("A Letter To My Baby"-like) Donnie Ray cuts too, namely the personable "Play Something Pretty On My Radio" and "Drowning In My Own Tears", the title song, which includes a disarming, Question Mark & The Mysterians-like keyboard.

"Same Woman" is a duet with Jaye Hammer, and despite Donnie Ray's dozen or so albums over the years there is a novelty and even anonymity to the pairing. Hammer, a large-scale new talent, is still little known, even within the confines of southern r&b. So, for instance, as opposed to the recent pairing of Sir Charles Jones and O. B. Buchana on "I Can't Get Her Off Of My Mind," it's not as easy to distinguish readily when it's Hammer and when it's Donnie Ray.

"What About Me" is a ballad in the classic southern soul mode.

"If You're Woman Enough (To Leave Me)" is an obvious reference to Karen Wolfe's "(If You're) Man Enough (To Leave, I'm Woman Enough To Let You Go)," but unlike Simone De, who lifted the background track from Karen's hit single when he made his own radio jam "Feels So Good," Donnie Ray borrows the concept and puts it into an entirely new musical framework.

It works, too. Like "Groove Party," "If You're Woman Enough To Leave Me" mines that vintage orchestral-soul sound that displays Aldredge's tenor to such stunning effect.

"Shakin' It Up" is a surprise and a winner. It nagged at me uncommonly before I put my finger on the classic that makes this song's engines purr: Johnnie Taylor's "Wall To Wall." (And once you make the connection, you notice the explicit references embedded in the song itself.) The echo, the added dimension, of "Wall To Wall" makes Donnie Ray's "Shakin' It Up" a strong candidate for a radio single.

The album closes with an especially affecting ballad called "You Keep Taking Your Love Away."

BEST OF DONNIE RAY, Aldredge's new "best-of" collection, slipped by unnoticed earlier this year, and given the up-and-down aspects of "regular" albums, it's a great value.

Actually, with the exception of the first two signature tunes--"Who's Rockin' You?" and "A Letter To My Baby"--the front end of this compilation is a little weak, filled with tunes which received scant notice at the time of their release.

Nevertheless, the album is important because it brings together for the first time the bulk if not the complete repertoire of Donnie Ray's hits:

"A Letter To My Baby," based on The McCrae's "Rocking Chair," the song that won Donnie Ray his fan base;

"Who's Rockin' You?", in which Donnie Ray hit his perfect Southern Soul groove;

"I'm Gonna Keep My Love At Home," Donnie Ray's most winsome and affecting if understated song (not least because of the female chorus);

"This Time the Dog Got Caught by the Cat," a better-than-average "response" song to Ms. Jody's "Your Dog Is Killing My Cat" when it came out, and it has aged well;

"It's Just A Party Thing," one of those perfect, good-time, heart-of-Southern-Soul songs in the mode of David Brinston's "Party 'Til The Lights Go Out (Nothing But A Party)";

"Sensual To Me," one of Donnie Ray's pre-eminent ballads, under-represented somewhat in this collection;

...and "BYOB," which still sounds good, its simplicity in its favor.

The short and spiffy precursor to "Who's Rockin' You," "BYOB" was the song that put fans and critics on notice that Donnie Ray was aiming for the center field fence.

For anyone who's ever enjoyed Donnie Ray, this pair of albums--one current, one retrospective--represents a godsend of worthy material, the best "face" Donnie Ray has put yet on his rising career.

--Daddy B. Nice

Sample/Buy Donnie Ray's New DROWNING IN MY OWN TEARS CD.

Drowning In My Own Tears at iTunes.

Sample/Buy New BEST OF DONNIE RAY CD.

Best Of Donnie Ray at iTunes.

Read Daddy B. Nice's new 21st Century Southern Soul Artist Guide to Donnie Ray.

*********

6.


October 13, 2013: NEW ALBUM ALERT!

Read Daddy B. Nice's new 5-star "southern soul heaven" CD Review of Donnie Ray's DROWNING IN MY OWN TEARS CD.

8/5/14: This review is now contained in this Artist Guide. Scroll to "Tidbits #5.

Sample/Buy Donnie Ray's New DROWNING IN MY OWN TEARS CD.

Drowning In My Own Tears at iTunes.

And, released earlier this year:

Sample/Buy New BEST OF DONNIE RAY CD.

Best Of Donnie Ray at iTunes.

The album is also reviewed in Daddy B. Nice's New CD Reviews.

See "Groove Party," Daddy B. Nice's #3 "Breaking" Southern Soul Single for October 2013.

7.

8.

March 7, 2015: DONNIE RAY: She's My Honey Bee (Ecko) Four Stars **** Distinguished effort. Should please old fans and gain new.

9.

NEW ALBUM ALERT!

Daddy B. Nice notes: Donnie Ray leaves longtime label Ecko Records for CDS Records for his new CD, TWO WAY LOVE AFFAIR. All the songs were written and produced by Ricky White.

10.

DONNIE RAY: Two Way Love Affair (CDS) Three Stars *** Solid. The artist's fans will enjoy.

If You Liked. . . You'll Love

If you liked Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes' "Wake Up Everybody," you'll love Donnie Ray's "Who's Rockin' You?"

Honorary "B" Side

"A Letter To My Baby"