Ashley Ray

Dive Bar Darling
Album “Pauline” out now! Listen here:
Watch NPR Tiny Desk performance here: https://youtu.be/ujDMZENuwwE

“Ashley Ray is not a household name, but she's no newcomer: As a songwriter with a Grammy nomination under her belt, she's written for big acts (Little Big Town's "The Daughters") and earned co-signs from industry veterans (Lori McKenna). But on "Pauline," the opening track of her breakthrough album of the same name, the Kansas native defines herself not by what she's built, but by what she's been bequeathed: her grandmother's name. Declared with force, it's a fitting statement of purpose for a deeply personal album that reckons with what we pass down and where we call home. —Lyndsey McKenna, NPR Top 50 albums of 2020

“What a voice.” — Robin Hilton, NPR’s All Songs Considered

“This gorgeous, gorgeous song is the title cut.” — Robin Hilton, NPR’s All Songs Considered, about “Pauline”

" ... this will be her breakthrough, and it's her most personal record… the way she inhabits these songs, she’s one of the most fully formed characters I have experienced on a record recently " — Ann Powers, NPR

"Poignant… Ray has already demonstrated many times over that she can create a moving piece of music" — American Songwriter

“Special” — CMT

“Real deal” — Leslie Fram, CMT

"[Ashley] co-wrote maybe my favorite song of last year... this is the voice of someone with attitude" — NPR's World Café, Ann Powers

“Like Lori McKenna, Ashley Ray excels at painting these memorable songscapes, suggesting sentiment or character with just a sound or a lyric, never giving too much away. Elsewhere, she demonstrates her ability to evoke Miranda Lambert through her more gritty, tough tracks. An unexpected dose of groove, "Slurry" features an organ and stabs of edgy electric a'la Elizabeth Cook. "Dirty Work" reads like an unearthed Buddy & Julie Miller cut, damning men's two-faced expectations that women do the jobs that get the dirt beneath their nails while keeping up appearances… Where some might strike too desperate a pose, or others might trump up the darker side of the family closet, she simply seems to be flipping through the fading portraits of the family album, setting the sepiatoned snapshots to a strain of country that is more traditional than contemporary, but no less relevant for the roots than Tyler Childers or Brent Cobb.” — Routes & Branches

“When Ashley’s deliciously twang-laced voice enters, with its platinum nasal timbres, the lyrics project a remarkable charm, slightly tarnished yet buffed to a luminous patina. As sweeping strings fill the backdrop, the tune takes on swampy charisma, a sonic je ne sais quoi… Ashley’s voice is wickedly visceral, nuanced with a sense of elegance, yet almost primal in its passion. Similar to a female Buddy Miller, this is a voice at once fragile, poignant, haunting, and warm… Low-slung and drawling, with an ambling rhythm, ‘Pauline’ is gorgeously wrought, edgy, and oh so evocative.” — Guitar Girl Magazine

“Ashley’s scrumptiously nasal voice, chock-full of marvelous twangy timbres, imbues the lyrics with probing coloration, both pungent and authentic. There’s a tang to her voice that’s at once delightfully tremulous and alluringly uncooked… The flow of the song rambles and undulates on a measured rhythm, while extensive strings infuse the tune with scrumptious boggy textures discharging the luminous dust of melancholy. ‘Pauline’ is gloriously superb, intimate and vulnerable, yet gorgeously, simply layered. The highlight is Ashley Ray’s matchless country voice.” — Medium

“The humidity is thick in Ashley Ray’s new song ‘Dirty Work,’ a steamy, sultry, and sneering track off her upcoming album Pauline. The Nashville-by-way-of-Kansas songwriter (she co-wrote Little Big Town’s ‘The Daughters’) adopts a trailer-park persona in the song’s video, hanging clothes on the line and lighting up smokes. Ray prays to St. Theresa and the Virgin Mary, she sings, but when it comes to life advice, she’s looking to secular art: ‘Come on now, Mona Lisa, tell me what’s a girl to do.’” — Rolling Stone/RSC (Best Country Songs of the Week)

"Fantastically talented… I could wax lyrical about every single track on this incredible album, but instead implore you to take a listen yourselves" — Belles and Gals

"With a fantastic eye for detail and gift for storytelling, Ashley is not afraid of exposing her vulnerable side and can write about a very personal situation while at the same time making it infinitely relatable to others…Pauline is among of my top releases of 2020"
— Belles and Gals