Tom V. Ray is an American bassist

Bassist

A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...

 living in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. He was born in 1965, and grew up on a farm in Vincennes, Indiana

Vincennes, Indiana

Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the Wabash River in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 18,701 at the 2000 census...

.

Ray’s professional musical career began in 1983, when he began performing with local bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

, country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 and classic rock

Classic rock

Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...

 cover band

Cover band

A cover band , is a band that plays mostly or exclusively cover songs. New or unknown bands often find the cover band format marketable for smaller gigs, and these bands may be known as a wedding band, party band and function band. A band whose covers consist mainly of songs that were chart hits is...

s. In 1990 he moved to New Orleans to join French Quarter

French Quarter

The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré as it was known then...

 legends Augie Jr. and the Big Mess Blues Band. During this time he met the iconic bluesman Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...

, who gave him a lesson in slap bass technique. Ray toured in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 for a year with the Big Mess Blues Band following the release of its self-titled debut album in 1990.

Subsequently Ray moved to Chicago and began collaborations with many of that city’s leading musical lights, including Uncle Tupelo

Uncle Tupelo

Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to attend college. The trio recorded three albums for Rockville...

’s Jeff Tweedy

Jeff Tweedy

Jeffrey Scot "Jeff" Tweedy is an American songwriter, musician and leader of the band Wilco. Tweedy joined rockabilly band The Plebes with high school friend Jay Farrar in the early 1980s, but Tweedy's musical interests caused one of Farrar's brothers to quit...

 and Jay Farrar

Jay Farrar

Jay Farrar is an American songwriter and musician currently based in St. Louis, Missouri. A veteran of two critically acclaimed music groups, Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, he began his solo music career in 2001...

, Jon Langford

Jon Langford

Jon Langford born October 11, 1957, Newport, Monmouthshire is a Welsh-born musician and artist who is presently based in Chicago. He is the younger brother of science-fiction author and critic David Langford...

 of the Mekons

The Mekons (band)

The Mekons are a British rock band. Formed in the late 1970s, they are one of the longest-running and most prolific of the first-wave British punk rock bands.- History :...

, the performance art

Performance art

In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...

ist Brigid Murphy, and Poi Dog Pondering

Poi Dog Pondering

Poi Dog Pondering is an American musical group, noted for its cross-pollination of diverse musical genres, including various forms of acoustic folk music, and electronic music. Founded in Hawaii in 1985, the band moved to Austin, Texas in 1987, where they recorded their first three albums...

’s Frank Orrall. In 1991 he started the Chicago underground jug band

Jug band

A Jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper...

 Devil in a Woodpile

Devil in a Woodpile

Devil in a Woodpile is a band from Chicago, Illinois. Although they routinely give a fresh sound to 80-year old songs, their repertoire and instrumentation categorizes them as a country blues or jug band.-History:...

 with Rick Sherry, and in 1993 co-founded the Bottle Rockets

The Bottle Rockets

The Bottle Rockets are an American rock band formed in 1992, currently based in St. Louis, Missouri. The founding members are Brian Henneman , Mark Ortmann , Tom Parr and Tom Ray . Current members are Henneman, Ortmann, John Horton and Keith Voegele...

 with Brian Henneman

Brian Henneman

Brian Henneman is an alt-country/roots rock musician best known as the frontman for the Bottle Rockets, as a songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist. Artists such as John Prine, Neil Young and Merle Haggard have influenced his songwriting style. Henneman began his musical career in the mid-1980s...

. Ray was also a founding member of the Langford-helmed combos the Waco Brothers

The Waco Brothers

The Waco Brothers are an alternative country band in Chicago, Illinois, formed by Jon Langford of the Mekons. The group grew out of Langford's wish to play more country-influenced music as the Mekons concentrated more on a punk sound. They were originally put together simply for local Chicago...

 and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts

Pine Valley Cosmonauts

-History:The group was initiated by Jon Langford as a covers group, with a constantly shifting repertory and cast of backing members. The name was first used for Langford's 1995 album of Johnny Cash cover songs...

.

From 1997 to 2008 Ray was the first chair Chapman Stick

Chapman Stick

The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and has been used on music recordings to play bass lines, melody lines, chords or textures...

 player with the Blue Man Group

Blue Man Group

Blue Man Group is an organization founded by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton. The organization produces theatrical shows and concerts featuring popular music, comedy and multimedia; recorded music and scores for film and television; television appearances for shows such as The Tonight...

 of Chicago at the Briar Street Theater

Briar Street Theater

The Briar Street Theater is located in Chicago, Illinois and is currently home to the long-running Blue Man Group. It originally was the carriage house for the Marshall Field and Company horses and was then bought by William Topel and reconstructed into the theatre it is today...

. Since 1999 he has been a member of Neko Case

Neko Case

Neko Case is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers....

’s band, which he continues to tour and record with, contributing to such releases as Case’s 2009 Grammy-nominated

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 album Middle Cyclone

Middle Cyclone

Middle Cyclone is the fifth studio album of American alternative country singer-songwriter Neko Case, released on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 on the ANTI- record label. Her first solo effort in three years, Case stated that "it took a very long time to make." As the title of the album suggests, the...

. Ray’s first solo album, featuring the musician on ukulele

Ukulele

The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....

, is scheduled to appear in the fall of 2010.