RAY LAWRENCE JR. Raw & Unplugged
Check’s In The Mail – Tonight She’ll Be Makin’ Love To Me Again – There’s Another Cheatin’ Heart – Tonight They’re Makin’ Babies – Hobo Story – She Stopped Loving’ Me – My Hurtin’ Will Be Gone – Lot Lizards Don’t Love You – Just Kick My Ass To Texas – Lucky Bastard – You Can Hide Your Body But You Can’t Hide Your Beauty – Two Timin’ Mama – Stay With Me Tonight
This CD is definitely raw and unplugged. I’m not sure there is a large enough market to make such a large number of love’s infidelity very popular. George Jones and Conway Twitty has pretty much covered this territory, and did it manifold. Ray is giving it a good go however, but the ‘topics’ he chooses to write about has pretty much been done and overdone in country music. Anybody that has ever lost someone they love, or been involved with someone they love who cheats on them, is going to directly connect to what Ray is writing about, but quite frankly it’s a somewhat overdone. He even takes to cursing in some of his creations, and that’s not going to set very well outside of a bar-room somewhere, and maybe not even there. He’s a pretty good singer though, uses his southwest accent to emphasize some of the aspects of the songs that he writes. This is kind of a ‘demo’ CD demonstrating his ability to ‘write’ rather than ‘play and sing.’ The only accompanient is his own guitar, and that’s strictly 3-chord rhythm. If Mr. Lawrence was plugging these songs 40 years ago in the country music market, he just might find singers standing in line to get his songs. In today’s world I don’t see that happening, but one thing is for sure, Ray Lawrence, Jr., is definitely a country music songwriter, and he’s a pretty good one. His melody lines are good, and his word rhythm patterns are good, and his progressions are good. Carolyn Camp helped him get this recording done, and it sounds like a two-microphone set-up, and it’s done as good as it can be done. All of the songs are published through RLJ Music Publishing Co. I want to personally wish Ray Lawrence Jr. all the luck in the world, keep at it Ray, there’s definitely a reason why you are doing what you are doing.
Ray Lawrence Jr., Cowboy Camp, 1645 W. Willette St., Phoenix, AZ 85007
BOB EVERHART