Amelia Ray

Amelia Ray is the world’s first middle-aged, Black, bisexual, female rock and roll star.

Ray wrote her first song (a Debbie Gibson-influenced pop smash titled, “Yeah, I Saw Him Again”) at age 10, and had self-produced three albums on cassette before ushering in the digital era with Mr. Gibson Scores Again. She penned all of the songs and performed all vocals and instruments on the 2001 release. The album revealed a melodic proficiency in tunes like the rock gospel opener “Whoyerdaddy?” and the bubblegum pop delight “Iberian Girl,” prompting jazz musician Rob Bargad to declare, “Amelia Ray is The Beatles’ long lost soul sister.”

In 2002, the San Francisco Bay Area native moved to France, and took up life as a European resident. The albums Music for Autistic People and ON soon followed, along with a string of festival appearances in Austria, Spain and Slovakia. In the 2010s, Ray began writing lyrics in other languages (“Ana no potable”) and experimenting with film (Road Song) and electronic music (Why No Dream). In 2020, Ray joined longtime collaborator Jake Wood to produce “Hambone Says,” a performance piece that uses contemporary past aesthetic to explore race relations, rage and role reversal in the U.S.

Also in 2020, Ray organised and hosted The Quarantuned Music Festival – a series of 24-hour, worldwide, virtual music festivals to benefit artists affected by Covid-19 concert cancellations. The festival included performances by Dianne Schuur and Chuck Prophet. Later that year, Ray created and hosted the virtual variety show Up, Up & A Ray, which featured the comedic genius of Lauren Flans. Peter Himmelman and Svavar Knútur were among the 25 musical guests featured on the show.

In early 2023, Ray released “Delegate,” the overwhelmed independent artist’s jazzy lamentation, and “Beste meneer Decleir,” a folk ode in Dutch to Belgian actor Jan Decleir.

Ray, who resides in Finland, is the founder of Europe for Ukraine – an initiative to gather musicians from 50 European countries to record an original composition in support of Ukraine.