B i o g r a p h y
Ray Lambiase has recently released his fifth full length CD, The Road Ahead, featuring eleven new songs that celebrate a range of Americana musical genres, and stories that will introduce listeners to a number of new memorable characters.
He began writing and performing his own songs as a teenager on Long Island.
"The voice - unexpectedly rich, gentle, passionate and drly humorous at turns - is alternately laced with bits of grit and a haunting vibrato." Proctor Lippincott, New York TImes
After traveling the college coffeehouse circuit in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, he formed his first band and recorded Slow Dance Romeo/Who'll Run to You Now in the early 1980s.
The single received significant local radio airplay and led to publishing contracts with Nashville's Combine Music and Bob Dylan's Special Rider Music publishing arm.
'His finest song remains Slow Dance Romeo. With its pliant, plaintive melody and wise yet touching lyrics, it has all the makings of a pop standard." Wayne Robins, Newsday
The follow-up EP Take Me To The Movies included six songs, and was released on Great Divide Records, a music cooperative formed by Jack Hardy during the early days of the Fast Folk Greenwich Village folk movement whose members included Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin and Bill Morrissey.
"I can appreciate the time and effort and all that musical wizardry stuff [but] I like Take Me To The Movies because Ray Lambiase didn't fill his album with stuff; he filled it with music." Richard Brancaccio, The Music Paper
His fourth CD, Kid Bayonne, debuted in December, 2018 at #7 on the Folk DJ radio chart, and featured ten original songs, anchored by the title cut suggesting love is always worth fighting for.
The Ballad of Three Finger Brown, was released in August 2016, and featured eleven acoustic performances of new material. The CD charted at #12 on the national Folk DJ list that month, with two cuts finishing among the twenty most played tracks. Despite the later release date, the title cut finished as the 55th most played song for all of the 2016.
"Sometimes, someone comes along that makes me remember why I so enjoy listening to music and doing this show." Trish Lewis, The Eclectic Chair
Twenty Lies and Other Stories, released in the fall of 2014, included eleven original tales of love lost, love won, and the choices faced by a variety of heroes and heroines.
The band featured nationally recognized musicians Kenny Kosek (Jerry Garcia, James Taylor) on fiddle, John Widgren (Martina McBride, Toby Keith) on pedal steel and Howard Emerson (Billy Joel, Eric Andersen) on guitar.
"One of the Ten Best CDs (Twenty Lies And Other Stories) of 2014."
Dan Herman, Radio Crystal Blue
Time Leaves Things Behind, Ray's 2013 release, also contained eleven original songs - and reunited long-time friends Mark Newman (John Oates, Sam Moore) and Kate Corrigan with original bandmates, Jim Uhl (bass), Cliff Hackford (drums) and Jack Gabis (lead guitar).
Ray lives with his wife on Long Island.
When I Build My Home (Take Me To The Movies) can also be heard on the Raquette RIver Rounders album R3. Free Men (Take Me To The Movies) was recorded for Fast Folk by Doug Waterman. Cedar Hill (Time Leaves Things Behind) was recorded by the indie-rock band King Penguin for Fruits de Mer Records.
