Johnny Ray produces debut original CD

You can call him the ultimate lounge lizard and he’ll consider it a compliment.And why shouldn’t he? Singer/songwriter and cover-artist extraordinaire Johnny Ray has built a solid fan base in Greater Boston and in Las Vegas, where he’s been performing regularly with his Johnny Ray Band for much of the past decade.On Saturday, with his new CD, Songs From the El Rey Motel, in tow, Ray and his band are scheduled to perform a free concert at City Hall Plaza in Boston at approximately 3 p.m., as part of WROR 105.7’s See New England Festival.The Johnny Ray Band rose to prominence on the local music scene as the original and frequent entertainers on Horizon’s Edge casino cruises out of Lynn, from 2000 through 2008. In fact, Ray credits his friend and East Coast manager Mike Tumulty, former entertainment director for Horizon’s Edge, with “discovering me.”Ray’s dead-on covers of favorites from Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and others led to frequent gigs at venues including Red Rock Bistro in Swampscott, The Wharf in Revere, Maddie’s Sail Loft in Marblehead and regular acoustic sets at Molly’s Pub in Lynn, as well as numerous private functions.Simultaneously, Ray made a name for himself in Sin City, first as a featured performer at a lounge in the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino and more recently at the legendary Sahara Resort Casino.”Las Vegas is where I first realized I was a lounge lizard,” says Ray, who was raised in Brookline but, after spending a couple of years in Florida, became a fixture in Marblehead for the last 10 years, a resident/guest of friends Peter and Suzanne Conway’s Harbor Light Inn.”Marblehead is my favorite place to be – it’s the closest thing to home for me. And Vegas is my other home,” he says. “I went out to Vegas in 2002, put together my own marketing kits and made a bunch of cold calls. I went into the Monte Carlo and that’s where I met Dave Kitrell, food/beverage and entertainment manager for the hotel and it turned out he’s an East Coast guy. He immediately recognized my strong Boston accent.”He told me he’d book me for one week in the lounge at the Monte Carlo and if I wasn’t any good after one show, he’d pay me for the week and send me home with no hard feelings. I ended up in a regular rotation at the Monte Carlo, performing every five weeks.”While he had achieved his goal of earning a living as a performing artist, the smooth and expressive 40-something baritone says he had long wanted to focus on original music.”I’ve been writing songs for years but when you’re a cover band – and when you’re a good cover singer – it’s very hard to break out of that,” says Ray, who today has separate bands in Boston and Vegas.The CD was conceived last fall when Ray was at somewhat of a crossroads professionally. In October he was offered the headline slot in the main showroom at the Sahara – Kitrell had moved from the Monte Carlo over to the Sahara.”The commitment would have lasted a year and it came with some risk,” Ray explained, noting that headline performers in Vegas are typically obligated to pay for their own marketing and pay band members from the ticket draw. With the recession taking a big toll on Vegas, Ray opted to postpone the showroom opportunity in favor of a recording studio in New York.”Given the direction of the economy, especially in Las Vegas, this was sage reasoning, but we still have a great relationship with the Sahara,” he said. “For now I’m still on the regular lounge rotation.”With the backing of friend and computer electronics mogul Peter Rogal of Nahant as executive producer, Ray was able to enlist the services of renowned guitarist Peter Calo, whom he had met a decade earlier, to produce his debut CD.Calo also happens to be the musical director and producer for one Carly Simon.”It’s been great to have Peter Calo on board and to work with him again ? There are lots of people who were involved in getting this project off the ground,” Ray said. “I owe a lot to Cheryl McNamara, one of P