Today we’d like to introduce you to Tray Dahl & The Jugtime Ragband.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Tray. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was born and lived in New Jersey until I was 18, then my parents moved us to the South. My grandfather’s parents were an arranged marriage in Italy and came into Ellis Island when many of the 12 children were young and the last few, my grandfather being the youngest, were born in New York. My grandparents and parents were very close, my grandparent threw great parties that my parents went to and my parents threw great parties that my grandparents went to. Both consisted of drinking and dancing to records. Music has been a huge part of our family life. My grandfather, John Joseph Durante, was a huge jazz and big band fan and constantly played records. I loved his music and he made me so many cassette tapes of the old songs of the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s that I loved so much and I listened to those all the way up until my cassette player in my car died a few years ago. But now, I have all these albums since he has passed away. And I often to listen to the records and make cocktails with friends.
All this is to say that my grandfather (Pop) is the one who introduced me to this sound of music I am playing and writing today. I am also a huge old movie fan (mostly 1930’s, and 20’s and 40’s movies), particularly all the Busby Berkley films about putting on a theatre show. It is really the combination of my love for the old music and the old movies that is the biggest influence on my songwriting and performances. The songs I am writing not only sound like they were written back in the old days but they are like little black and white movies. Each song is a story set in the 20’s or 30’s mostly but some take place in the 1800’s. I don’t often write songs about my own experiences, although I put little bits of my tastes and personality into my main characters of the story/song.
Some years back, I stumbled into Jack of the Wood in Asheville and heard a dixieland band called Fire cracker Jazz band (now I hire their horn players sometimes!). I couldn’t believe anybody was even playing this music that I had been listening too with my pop my whole life. I was astounded. I thought I would have to catch Woody Allen in New York City if I wanted to hear the stuff live and here it was! When I got home I looked up and followed the band and found out they were playing at the Cumming Playhouse in Cumming, GA in a few months. Man, I was so there! It was great! Then I thought, well if this Cumming playhouse has one band like this maybe they have more, so I started following their schedule and before long I went out again and saw a jug band called the Jake Leg Stompers. It was then, in that playhouse that I said to myself, I am going to get a tenor banjo (both those bands have old jazz 4 string tenor players) and start playing all the old songs I love from my childhood and old movies. I was asking around about tenor banjos since it is a dead instrument that went out in the 1930’s with the big bands and you can’t find them on the shelves of any music stores. Then, a fella who wanted a 5 string bluegrass banjo but was gifted a 4 string tenor just had it sitting around and gave it to me! I never looked back. But I only intended to play for fun, ya know, at parties and such. I was going to be finishing my masters in Geography soon and I wanted to start the band for something fun to do, for my soul, ya know, since I was going to be entering the daily grind.
But I never got in the rat race, they wouldn’t let me in!!! The way I got started playing the music for my bread is unemployment! I tried and tried to get teaching jobs and even corporate training jobs but it just wasn’t happening. Meanwhile, the band was gaining popularity like wildfire! At a certain point, I just quit looking for jobs and went full time into booking and managing the band. We do all the local festivals and tons of private events and stuff, but all along I was having all these ideas about incorporating a theatrical element into the show. Last June I finally got all my ideas on paper and wrote a script. I wrote that thing in 5 hours at the bar at Raging Burrito in Decatur! I put all the classic bits in the show, ya know, pie in the face and stuff like that. The show is called: “Tray Dahl’s Travelling Prohibition Show” where the band is the band, but we also double as a prohibition era gang of bootleggers where I am the gang boss they call “The Hat”. I wrote in some characters that come out about every third or fourth song and interact with the band – a washed up show-girl (who is kind of like Lucille Ball always trying to get into Ricky’s show) who fancies herself a real talent but we just hired her to make our drinks every time I ring a bell. And another character is our band manager Randolph Barrymore, who is the sibling to Ethel, John and Lionel Barrymore who can’t act! He is mad at the world and always comes out and criticizes us and whatnot. And we have another character, an Irish gangster who comes out and sells us crates of bootleg whiskey. It’s a pretty funny show. I got a chance to put it on just last Saturday at… wait for it. The Cumming Playhouse! The actual room I was in when I decided to play this music! It was a huge accomplishment for me. That place really has meaning for me. The show was a success. No one in Cumming has even heard of us, so they told us not to expect too many ticket sales. We only had about 50 for the 3:00 matinee, which is not bad for a matinee, but we also only had about 51 sold for the 8 pm show. But then it was so well loved that all the residents that came went home and told the town about it and between 5:00 when the show ended and the 8 pm show there were another 50 tickets sold and about 15 walk-ins. Just an amazing night.
Anyway, that is where I am trying to go, the theatre route. It is mostly a music concert, but with added little comedy bits and dance numbers (we had three tap dancers when we played 42nd street and we did a huge finale of Happy Days are here again with 6 chorus line girls coming out and doing a kickline). We got some footage and are in the process of trying to put together a “sizzle reel” to get future bookings and attract agents/investors. Fingers crossed!
Anyway, as far as the music goes, we are in the process of recording an album now of 12 songs written by me (one was co-written with a buddy). It is very expensive to record and we have a go fund me going right now to finish it. I think it should be released in April or May. There is already a 5 song EP of my stuff out there now that came out in 2016 that Universal Music group released on their KillerTracks label. KillerTracks is a database of music they buy from nobody’s like me and put in a database for licensing out to movies, tv, gaming and advertising. I did manage to get the composer’s share of the royalty’s in the contract but they made me sign away my publishing rights and they will take 100% of the sync licensing money. But all it will take is for one of my songs to end up in some great movie with a soundtrack that sells millions and I will make some pretty good dough still. Anyway, that was just a lucky break. We were playing at Chomp & Stomp in Cabbage town and a guy who just quit his longtime job as a producer at universal happened to be there and went absolutely nuts for my songs. He hooked the whole deal up them. So far, I got a $56 check for Price Is Right using about 10 seconds of a song for a trip to New Orleans a person was bidding on in the showcase showdown! Hahahhahhhahha! That cracks me up.
I think that’s about it, for now, I could go on and on, but I won’t do that to ya!
Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth in a lot of ways, doors just kept opening before me on certain things, like the universal deal and all of the people that came out of nowhere to volunteer to make the theatre show happen in Cumming. The director, the choreographer, dancers, the stage manager, it was amazing. In fact, I needed a “stage-worthy” banjo (professional quality) and all I had was that beater one the guy gave me. That was when I was unemployed but a group of people (they were anonymous) believed so much in the music and that I needed to keep pressing on that someone went around town collecting money to buy me a good banjo. One person handed me cash and I had to order one from a vintage shop in Nashville.
The obstacle, however, is that I work 7 days a week, mostly for no pay booking and managing the band, which is really a 40 hour or more thing. I mean the gigs pay, but $150 here, $200 there (festival and bar venues) doesn’t really pay the bills. We get some pretty good $2000 – $4000 dollar private party/wedding type stuff but only maybe a few a month and by the time you split that money with 6 or 7 folks it is not a “living.” I have a 6 piece band and I have to hire horn players, who are super expensive on a Saturday night. There were countless gigs in the beginning, at places like Smith’s Olde Bar and whatnot where me, my drummer, and bass player just played for free because we had to use all the money to have horn players there. So essentially, I have to have another job still on top of it for some more money. But that job has to be no more than 2 days a week and flexible enough for me to do this. Currently, I’m teaching a geography class at GSU. So basically a huge obstacle is that I’m busy all the time and broke all the time. Until my ship comes in that is, then we’ll all laugh about this! Hahhahha. But I will say, I’m super happy. I’m having the time of my life and would rather do this being broke than making a fortune in the daily grind sitting on 285 for 2 hours a day and wanting to stab my face. Haahhahaha! I’m always one timing belt or transmission away from ruin! Ahhaha! But I’m always in a good mood because I believe I have a destiny with this thing and the road along the way is teaching me a lot about life and myself and that’s the stuff you need but can’t buy.
We’d love to hear more about your business. What sets you apart from the others?
I’m in showbiz! I sell performances! What sets me apart from the others is that most musicians are not playing early 20th century New Orleans style music, or classic movie show tunes or putting on what I have termed a “theatrical music show.” And most people’s music lyrics are not fun little stories set in the 1920’s and 30’s.
And also the vocals, not too many people have a singing style like mine these days.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I’m not sure. I haven’t tried to do this anywhere else but I do know that it feels like there is kind of a shortage of horn players in this town. Sometimes I have a show and can’t find any available horns. Well, actually it’s more like there must be a lot of good work in this town for horn players because when they are not available it is because they have booked with another band for the night. Sometimes it takes me a ton of phone calling to find someone who has the night open. But they are all super eager to work and if they are not booked they will gladly take the work. But sometimes I have to call guys I know up in South Carolina to come down to Atlanta to play on a night I can’t find an available local guy. People always say that New York, Nashville, or New Orleans might be better for more available horn players, but I don’t know if that is true.
Contact Info:
- Website: jugtimeragband.com
- Phone: 404-788-3466
- Email: tray@jugtimeragband.com
Image Credit:
Chris Adams, Brian Weaver, Dianne Lopez
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
