Tom Gray (born 1941) is the bass player in two Hall of Fame bands. He played with the classic Country Gentlemen from 1960 to 1964 and was a founding member of the Seldom Scene in 1971. The DC Bluegrass Union calls him the leading bluegrass bassist of his generation. He did it all while holding a day job making maps for the National Geographic Society.
Why Gray matters
Gray made the bass a solo voice in bluegrass. The Country Gentlemen pushed him to play flashy walking lines and to take solos, and he kept doing it in the Seldom Scene. His bass solo on Grandfather’s Clock, from the Seldom Scene’s double live album Live at the Cellar Door, is a feature the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame calls a tour de force. It showed that a bluegrass bass could lead as well as follow.
Life and career
Gray was born on February 1, 1941, in Chicago. His family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1948. A babysitter who listened to the Grand Ole Opry gave him his first taste of country music. He started on guitar, moved to mandolin, and found the bass when a friend left one in his basement after a jam.
In high school and college he played in the Rocky Ridge Ramblers and went to every Country Gentlemen show he could. When their bass chair opened in September 1960, he took it. The lineup of Gray, John Duffey, Eddie Adcock, and Charlie Waller is now called the classic Country Gentlemen. He left in July 1964 to support his young family and went to work full time as a cartographer.
He kept playing around Washington with Buzz Busby, Red Allen, Bill Emerson and Cliff Waldron, and others. In 1969 he began jamming in Ben Eldridge’s basement in Bethesda with Duffey, John Starling, and Mike Auldridge. That jam became the Seldom Scene, which played its first show in November 1971. Gray played in the band until the late 1980s, when it moved toward a more modern sound. Since then he has worked with the Gary Ferguson Band, the Hazel Dickens Band, John Starling and Carolina Star, and many others.
Playing style
Gray’s playing is busy, melodic, and swinging. His role models were George and John Shuffler, who played bass on the Stanley Brothers records, and the jazz bassist Keeter Betts. From them he took a walking 4/4 line and a habit of playing interesting notes. Duffey liked his walking bass so much that he had the engineer turn the bass up on the Country Gentlemen’s Folkways records.
As he got older, Gray said he learned not to walk all the time. In the Seldom Scene he picked his spots, which made the walks hit harder. He also sang duets with Duffey and parts in gospel quartets.
Influences and legacy
Gray learned from George Shuffler and his brother John, and from Keeter Betts. He played beside John Duffey, Eddie Adcock, Charlie Waller, Mike Auldridge, and Ben Eldridge. He has also taught at the DC Bass Strummit, a bass workshop in Virginia.
Signature tunes and songs
Grandfather’s Clock, his bass solo with the Seldom Scene Walking the Blues, which he wrote Silence or Tears, his melody to words from a Lord Byron poem Rider, which he co-arranged.
Essential recordings
Folk Session Inside, the Country Gentlemen (1963) Act I, the Seldom Scene (Rebel, 1972) Live at the Cellar Door, the Seldom Scene (Rebel) Long Time… Seldom Scene (Smithsonian Folkways, 2014)
Awards and honors
International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, as a member of the Country Gentlemen (1996) International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, as a member of the Original Seldom Scene (2014)
What to learn from Gray
Learn Grandfather’s Clock as a bass solo. Play the melody on the low strings, then walk back into the rhythm when the band comes in. Next, take any song your jam plays and walk the bass only on the last line of each verse. Gray’s lesson is that a walk means more when it is saved for the right spot.
Sources
Tom Gray, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum Tom Gray, DC Bluegrass Union Tom Gray (bluegrass musician), Wikipedia Tom Gray on George Shuffler, Bluegrass Today Awards by Category, IBMA
Related players
See the bass players hub and the bass guide. Gray learned from George Shuffler. Mike Auldridge and John Duffey were his Seldom Scene bandmates, and Fred Travers played with him in the Gray, Green, and Travers Trio.