Here's an article about Koerner, Ray and Glover that came out after Dave Ray died a couple years ago. I highly recommend their very first album "Blues, Rags and Hollers." Also Tony Glover wrote the definitive book on how to play blues harp.
Koerner, Ray and Glover's proof of influence
Chris Riemenschneider
Published December 8, 2002 KRGBAR
Musical influence is a hard line to draw, but not when you have specific examples such as these famous performers who have crossed paths with Koerner, Ray and Glover.
Bob Dylan: While hanging around the University of Minnesota from 1959 to 1961, young Bobby Zimmerman traveled in the same Dinkytown-drawn music circles as KR&G. He listened to records at Dave Ray's house and hung with Tony Glover to New York. He and Glover visited Woody Guthrie in the hospital together in 1963. Glover also witnessed some of Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" sessions in 1965.
Dylan invited Ray and Glover to open a 1992 Orpheum concert. In 1996, he wrote these words for KR&G's "One Foot in the Groove" album: "Exactly like you'd think it would be, stunning. KR&G haven't lost a step. Every time they play the lights shine."
Tony Glover joined the Doors onstage in 1968.Mike BarichFileJohn Lennon: For a 1964 "day in the life of" article in British magazine Melody Maker, the Beatle pulled out a copy of KR&G's "Blues, Rags & Hollers" and declared it a favorite.
Rolling Stones: After a book signing by Bill Wyman in the Twin Cities last year, the original Stones bassist told Glover, "We listened to you guys a lot."
The Doors: Signed to Elektra Records four years after KR&G, the band was rumored to have taken its "Love Me Two Times" riff from the trio. Guitarist Robby Krieger confirmed this in 1968 when Glover interviewed the band before a concert at the Minneapolis Auditorium. "He said, 'How'd you like the song we copped from you?' " recalled Glover, who also joined the band on stage.
Bonnie Raitt: A lover of Koerner's 1969 album with Willie Murphy, "Running, Jumping, Standing Still," the blues-folk starlet enlisted Murphy and Ray to record her 1971 debut for Warner Bros. at a studio Ray set up at a boys' camp on Lake Minnetonka. She cut Koerner's now-signature song "I Ain't Blue" for the album.
"From the first time I heard their albums, I've loved KR&G," Raitt is quoted as saying on Glover's Web site. "Their ultra-cool look, funky rhythm, their wicked sense of humor and passion is what got me then, and still gets me now."
Beck: The "Loser" hitmaker's acoustic albums show KR&G's influence, so it's not surprising now that he asked Ray and Glover to open his first big First Avenue concert in 1994. But it was a surprise back then. Said Ray, "He came out beforehand and told the kids, 'I'm a big fan of these guys,' so they didn't just say, 'Where the [expletive] is Beck?"
Talking to Star Tribune music critic Jon Bream in 1997, Beck said of the trio: "They seemed to be one of the only people from that folk-revival period who would just completely play their music with abandon. A lot of the music from that period is very respectful and almost too tasteful. It was almost quaint. They were just so raucous."
