60s Flavored Rock-n-Roll from Gainesville, Florida's THE RIGHTEOUS KIND! Featuring Guru Charles Ray, Tom Miller on Bass, Professor B. Burrhus Bran on Hammond B3
Award-winning singer/songwriter Charles Ray Martin leads an all-star cast of rock and blues musicians in a rock-n-roll revival called The Righteous Kind. Hailing from Gainesville, FL, a hotbed of musical activity that has produced artists as diverse as Tom Petty, Against me! and Sister Hazel, The Righteous Kind has an innovative garage/psychedelic rock sound that is influenced by both classic-â60s and modern-alternative rock. The band features superior song writing and has tremendous stylistic range - from garage to alternative to classic to psychedelic to pop rock. The Righteous Kind are superb showmen, and their live shows are more than anything else fun.
Three of the songs on the bandâs debut CD entitled âSome Are of Loveâ won songwriting accolades, including âRighteous Man,â a winner in the 10th Annual Great American Song Contest. âShow me the day,â their tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., won honorable mention in the 2009 Peacedriven.com songwriting contest.
Joining guitarist and front man Charles Ray are Tom Miller, formerly of Chicago blues sensation Vini and the Demons, on bass, and Larry Thompson, from the ionic country-rock band dblWiDE, on drums. Rounding out the group is B.B. Brashear, BBB, on the Hammond B3 organ.
âœRock ânâ roll fans will get a kick out of The Righteous Kind at the Atlantic on Saturday night. Featuring the one-of-a-kind Charles Ray Martin on guitar and vocals and one of Gainesvilleâs best rhythm sections, these guys bring back riff-infused rock 'n' roll with a strong psychedelic presence.â Dante Lima, Music Editor, Gainesville Sun, July 9, 2009
Find the Righteous Kind on Facebook. Buy a CD at www.CDBaby.com/charlesray
charlesray67@gmail.com
-----------------------
Press Release, August 6, 2007.
Official Biography of The Righteous Kind
The Justice Department today disclosed that Gainesville, Florida, long known as a center for the alternative lifestyles that defined the Sixties, provided a haven for four influential personalities from that era, each long thought to be dead. Astonishingly each, unknown to the others, had lived under an assumed identity for decades, and only realized the similarity of their situations after joining a band devoted to playing Sixties music. The disclosure is the result of monthsâ of negotiation between law enforcement officials and Charles Ray, Slam Gunther, Larry California and B. Burrhus Bran, now members of the band The Righteous Kind. âœWe felt that we could not make this music unless we were honest about who we really were,â Ray said.
Of the band, the disappearance of Charles Ray is the most famous. In June, 1968, Rayâs band, Charles Ray and the Ravers, had both the number one album âœRavelations!â and the number one single, âœRighteous Man,â in the country. Ray appeared to be at the beginning of a long music career. Unknown to even his closest friends, Ray was already planning his exit. On August 18, 1968, Ray staged his own death. âœIt was so easy! I had a fancy Porsche. I put some of my clothes and some drugs in the back seat and pushed it over a cliff on the PCH. The Malibu cops assumed that I was high and naked, and that was it,â Ray said. âœI had had enough. I just walked away from the whole thing.â
Ray, who had never attended college, enrolled under the name of Charles R. Martin, ultimately receiving a PhD in Chemistry and going on to a distinguished career in academia. Recently, that has not been enough. âœWar! Intolerance! The same damn things we protested in the Sixties! I knew it was time to put a new band together and take a second shot at spreading the message through my music.â
In a series strange coincidences, each of the musicians Ray contacted had also abandoned Sixties celebrity and was living under an assumed identity. The artist/bassist Tom Miller was in fact Fritz Schlager âœSlamâ Gunther, German artistâ“provocateur, best known as the creative force behind the controversial LA band Squatting Dogs. When the bandsâ explicit anti-war message became the focus of an FBI investigation, Gunther, who was also sought by German authorities, went underground.
Larry Thompson, the Righteous Kindâs drummer, was actually Larry California, one of the most respected drummers of the Sixties and a member of the supergroup, Circus McGurkus. California was forced to change his identity following several public indecency arrests with the 17 year old daughter of a powerful state official with apparent ties to organized crime. Keyboard player B. Bruce Brashear was actually the controversial philosopher Prof. B. Burrhus Bran, best known as the author of Translating the Universe, condescendingly referred to in the Sixties as âœThe Hippieâs Bible.â Bran, a reluctant guru, dropped out to find the peace and calm he needed to complete his philosophical works. âœI left it to Tim Leary to take the heat,â Bran said.
After the band began practicing, it was not long before they learned of each otherâs past. They ultimately contacted the Department of Justice. DOJ representatives were initially skeptical. âœWe thought the whole thing was some kind of publicity stunt, but we investigated each story. As strange as it first appeared, we found all of it to be true,â said Tess Tracy, the assistant district attorney assigned to the case. All charges in the U.S. and Germany have been officially dropped.
Song Info
Track Files
