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Widely considered the leading bluegrass bassist of his generation, Tom Gray was born in Chicago in 1941.
His family moved to Washington in 1948 where his father took a job working for a labor union. Gray's
earliest exposure to bluegrass and old-time country music came through his babysitter, who would listen
to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio when his parents were out.
Gray's first instrument was guitar. He then moved on to mandolin, but the deep tones of the bass soon
attracted him. He listened avidly to the recordings of the Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe and Flatt and
Scruggs and was profoundly influenced by the athletic, moving bass lines of George Shuffler,
John Shuffler and, later, jazz master Keeter Betts, who was also a D.C. native.
Gray's first band was the Rocky Ridge Ramblers, populated entirely with fellow Western High School
students, including Monty Monteith on guitar, Jerry Steuart on mandolin, Bob Lindter banjo and Ron
Roswell on fiddle.
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The bassist joined the Country Gentlemen in 1960 Replacing Jim Cox. The lineup of Gray, John Duffey,
Eddie Adcock and Charlie Waller would take bluegrass music to new heights and new audiences around
the country. This dynamic configuration of players is now referred to by music historians and fans
alike as "the classic Country Gentlemen."
Gray left the band in 1964, replaced by Ed Ferris. The long hours on the road and low pay of a
full-time musician had taken their toll. With a young family to feed, he started a career as a
cartographer for National Geographic magazine. Gray continued to play locally around the Washington,
D.C., region in the mid and late 1960s with Benny and Vallie Cain, Buzz Busby, Leon Morris, Red
Allen, Emerson and Waldron and Bill Clifton.
In 1969, Gray began attending a weekly jam session in the basement of banjoist Ben Eldridge's house
in Bethesda, Md., which attracted what would become an internationally acclaimed group of musicians,
including John Duffey, Eldridge, John Starling, Mike Auldridge and Emmylou Harris. The music was
so good, Duffey agreed to come out of a self-imposed retirement and the Seldom Scene was born.
The band's first public gig was at the Rabbit's Foot, a rock club in Georgetown, on Nov. 1, 1971.
Between 1971 and 1987, Tom Gray supplied the rhythmic engine of the super group as it bridged
traditional bluegrass with new songs by such non-bluegrass artists as James Taylor, Merle Haggard
and JJ Cale. Gray toured nationally and internationally with the Seldom Scene until 1986 when he
left the band for other musical pursuits.
He continues to play nationally and regionally with such bands as Reflections Ridge, the Country
Gentlemen Reunion, Jay Armsworthy, the Bluegrass Authority, the Federal Jazz Commission and Randy
Barrett and the Barretones.
Tom Gray was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Honor in Owensboro, Ky., in 1996. He lives in
Kensington, Md., with his wife, Sally.
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