{"id":50249,"date":"2019-06-07T07:55:56","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T06:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/?p=50249"},"modified":"2019-06-07T09:18:10","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T08:18:10","slug":"oliver-ray-shows-hes-the-best-game-in-town-in-duet-with-patti-smith-from-debut-album-out-passed-nowhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2019\/06\/oliver-ray-shows-hes-the-best-game-in-town-in-duet-with-patti-smith-from-debut-album-out-passed-nowhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Oliver Ray Shows He&#8217;s The &#8216;Best Game In Town&#8217; In Duet With Patti Smith From Debut Album &#8216;Out Passed Nowhere&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>If a song released from a debut solo album is a duet with the legendary Patti Smith, then you&#8217;re certainly going to wonder about the circumstances behind that event occurring. In the case of &#8216;Best Game In Town&#8217;, from Oliver Ray&#8217;s debut album, &#8216;Out Passed Nowhere&#8217;, released today on Royal Oakie Records, it&#8217;s not a happy accident. <\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- Random Ad stuff --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"3107208401\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2076862002005673\"><\/ins><\/p>\n<p><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Ray is the close friend of Smith, and the long time guitarist in her band, but he&#8217;s stepping into the spotlight for the first time on his own, and even without her assistance, the track will make people sit up and listen.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It&#8217;s not the first track from the album. Ray released &#8216;Ol&#8217; Coyote&#8217; in early May to some acclaim. And it&#8217;s certainly not the only track on the album to feature a guest collaborator, as &#8216;Out Passed Nowhere&#8217; contains a cavalcade of artists who hail from the Bay Area, Tucson, and New York City musical fraternity &#8211; members of Giant Sand, Sugar Candy Mountain, The Myrrors, Xixa, and China &#8211; in addition to Smith. It is however the debut album others can only dream of, and is the culmination of decades of playing music and writing songs; in fact we might well ask why it&#8217;s taken so long for him to release his debut. He puts it succinctly however, stating in a press release about the record,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This album stands as testament to all those miles of road traveled.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8216;Best Game In Town&#8217; is a long cool drink of water. It&#8217;s languid and drawling but it conveys an instant sense of calm, with Ray and Smith&#8217;s vocals coalescing in such a way that you know this is a friendship that has stood the test of time. They&#8217;re comfortable with each other, and can anticipate each other&#8217;s strengths in such a way as to let them shine.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8216;Best Game In Town&#8217; sonically falls somewhere between folk and rock &#8211; folk rock if you will &#8211; with a definite psychedelic vibe thrown into the mix, particularly the echoed intones of the song title. Guitar led with scant percussion (there&#8217;s some gentle cymbals at the start, and just enough drums to keep the beat), it&#8217;s the vocals which take centre stage. Oliver Ray&#8217;s voice calls to mind Tom Petty, Neil Young, even Patti Smith herself. It&#8217;s drawn out and lazy and yet there&#8217;s a sense of urgency about it, as he conveys how much Smith means to him &#8211; and she echoes the same sentiment in reply.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8216;Out Passed Nowhere&#8217; was produced by David Glasebrook, who in collaboration with Ray ensured each track had its own unique sonic stamp. Essentially there are no genre boundaries on the record; rather the focus has been on the emotions of each song. It all works, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that at the start you think is just a pile of blue sky pieces, but in the end you discover it&#8217;s actually a glorious landscape.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8216;Out Passed Nowhere&#8217;, by Oliver Ray, is released today on Royal Oakie Records. Read more about him on their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.royaloakierecords.com\/artist-page-oliver-ray\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\">\n<div  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_26820\"  width=\"640\" height=\"480\"  data-origwidth=\"640\" data-origheight=\"480\"  data-relstop=\"1\" data-facadesrc=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0yef3Mor_sk?enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https:\/\/essentiallypop.com&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;controls=1&#038;disablekb=0&#038;color=red&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;rel=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__ epyt-facade epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" data-epautoplay=\"1\" ><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-spai-excluded=\"true\" class=\"epyt-facade-poster skip-lazy\" loading=\"lazy\"  alt=\"Best Game in Town\"  src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/0yef3Mor_sk\/maxresdefault.jpg?w=640&#038;ssl=1\"  \/><button class=\"epyt-facade-play\" aria-label=\"Play\"><svg data-no-lazy=\"1\" height=\"100%\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 68 48\" width=\"100%\"><path class=\"ytp-large-play-button-bg\" d=\"M66.52,7.74c-0.78-2.93-2.49-5.41-5.42-6.19C55.79,.13,34,0,34,0S12.21,.13,6.9,1.55 C3.97,2.33,2.27,4.81,1.48,7.74C0.06,13.05,0,24,0,24s0.06,10.95,1.48,16.26c0.78,2.93,2.49,5.41,5.42,6.19 C12.21,47.87,34,48,34,48s21.79-0.13,27.1-1.55c2.93-0.78,4.64-3.26,5.42-6.19C67.94,34.95,68,24,68,24S67.94,13.05,66.52,7.74z\" fill=\"#f00\"><\/path><path d=\"M 45,24 27,14 27,34\" fill=\"#fff\"><\/path><\/svg><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If a song released from a debut solo album is a duet with the legendary Patti Smith, then you&#8217;re certainly going to wonder about the circumstances behind that event occurring. In the case of &#8216;Best Game In Town&#8217;, from Oliver Ray&#8217;s debut album, &#8216;Out Passed Nowhere&#8217;, released today on Royal Oakie Records, it&#8217;s not a happy accident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":50336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,21455,57,9,21453,21445,21446],"tags":[21558,277,19260,21561,144,77,370,21560,21557,21559,6554,19256,21562,21563,21564],"class_list":["post-50249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-new-albums","category-new-artists","category-new-releases","category-new-singles","category-reviews","category-single-reviews","tag-best-game-in-town","tag-china","tag-david-glasebrook","tag-giant-sand","tag-new-album","tag-new-release","tag-new-single","tag-ol-coyote","tag-oliver-ray","tag-out-passed-nowhere","tag-patti-smith","tag-royal-oakie-records","tag-sugar-candy-mountain","tag-the-myrrors","tag-xixa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yMhl-d4t","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":61924,"url":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2020\/04\/evan-myall-releases-self-titled-debut-album-first-song-forever-mine\/","url_meta":{"origin":50249,"position":0},"title":"Evan Myall Releases Self Titled Debut Album &#8211; First Song &#8216;Forever Mine&#8217;","author":"Lisa Hafey","date":"28\/04\/2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Los Angeles based Evan Myall Reiss, is the guitarist and main songwriter with psychedelic band, Sleepy Sun, and is known professionally by his first two names. 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