Sue Ray is a proud Gamilaroi woman living on Giabal country (southern Queensland) whose musical influences include jazz, blues, heavy metal, and country music. She was named Most Promising New Talent in the 2013 Deadly awards and Female Artist of The Year in the Queensland Music Awards in that same year. In 2012, her album Red Roses was nominated for Country Album of The Year in the AIR Independent Music Awards.
The country sound was predominant on her last single, ‘All the Lonely Ones’, and on her new single, ‘Demons Will Win’, although it’s easy to hear how Ray’s voice suits a range of genres – because oh, what a voice it is. ‘Demons Will Win’ is the story of a relationship in which each person has their demons, and those demons look set to be stronger than anything else especially as they masquerade as being a ‘really good time’. The tension and sadness of the realisation that the relationship’s present is not as good as the past, and may never be, can be heard in Ray’s voice – although there is the hope too, as the demons haven’t quite succeeded …
Ray has performed at many festivals including The Woodford Folk Festival, The Americana Music Conference in Nashville TN, Bigsound Brisbane, Blue Mountains Blues & Roots Festival Katoomba, AWME World Music Conference and at the 2019 Gympie Muster, and has supported artists including Troy Cassar-Daley, James Blundell, Dan Sultan, Brad Butcher, Melody Moko and Allison Forbes. In addition to Red Roses she’s also released the albums Best Beware and Live at the Junk Bar.