Ray Davis, currently host of The Ray Davis Show on WAMU’s Bluegrass Country, celebrates 60 years in broadcasting today (May 2).
Davis joined WAMU in 1985 to host Saturday Bluegrass, and shared hosting duties for the weekday afternoon program, Bluegrass Country, until 2001. He currently hosts three live hours of traditional bluegrass music on The Ray Davis Show at 3 p.m., weekdays, and 10 a.m., Sundays, on WAMU’s Bluegrass Country, heard in Washington, D.C., in HD Radio at 88.5, Channel 2, and online at bluegrasscountry.org.
Davis provides area bluegrass fans and online listeners worldwide with a daily dose of the traditional American art form, from prison songs and “plum pitiful” tunes to the great train rides - and train wrecks - of bluegrass music, all delivered with Davis’ encyclopedic knowledge of the artists and the music. More than a DJ, Ray Davis is both a musicologist and an archivist who takes listeners on a stroll down bluegrass music’s memory lane. His specialties, the plum pitiful tunes, are tearjerkers that explore universal themes of death, betrayal, and jealousy.
“Ray Davis is a legend in music broadcasting. He has helped define bluegrass music on-air since its earliest days as a discrete genre, and has placed a lasting imprint on it with his dedication to playing, promoting, and recording its musicians”, said Caryn G. Mathes, WAMU 88.5’s General Manager. “His booming, resonant voice is synonymous with the sound of bluegrass at WAMU, and his willingness to explore broadcasting on multiple new media platforms as radio evolves has been an inspiration to me.”
Davis began his radio career at the age of 15, when he left his boyhood home in Wango, Maryland., for a job at WDOV-AM in Dover, Delaware. (more…)