“‘Between The Golden Age & The Promised Land’ is an album awash with atmosphere”.
Tim Carroll Folk Words
Ray Cooper is an acoustic singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He accompanies his songs with a cello, mandolin, guitar and piano; each song comes with a story and Ray has a lot of stories to tell.
Ray started to play in bands when he was 16. After Art College in Brighton, he joined the punk band Amazorblades, moved to London and began to work with other groups and genres. By the time he joined the 3 Mustaphas 3 in 1982, he was already an experienced session musician and had worked with a number of producers: Steve Lillywhite, Martin Rushent, Phil Chevron, Joe Jackson, Pete Bellotte, Aki Dean and Edwin Starr. He had been moving between rock, punk, pop and world music, and working as a singer, bass guitar player and cellist, before he finally hooked up with Oysterband and began a long exploration into his own roots.
After moving to Sweden in 2000, Cooper continued playing with Oysterband, eventually touring in 27 countries and recording 19 albums. In 2012 they won three awards from BBC Radio 2’s Folk Awards for best group, best album and best traditional track, appeared on the Later with Jools Holland show and were hailed by FROOTS magazine as one of the three ‘Icons of Folk’. Despite their success, Cooper took the decision to leave the band and go solo in 2013. He has since carved out a successful solo career, recording four solo albums and has toured extensively in Britain, Northern Europe and Canada.
