Ray Dean Reese (May 16, 1939 - )

Biography

Ray Dean Reese was born on May 16,1939 near Asheville, North Carolina. He sang with his first group, The Masters Quartet, at the age of 14. After graduating from High School in 1957, he pulled two hitches in the U.S. Army. After returning from the Army in 1963, he joined the newly reorganized Silvertones and sang with them for about three years.

This was followed by brief stints with The Inspirations and the Pine Ridge Boys. Around this same time, he worked driving a delivery truck for a coffee company. Reese joined the Kingsmen Quartet in 1967 but was let go after a year or so when Calvin Runion grew weary of living in Florida singing with the Dixie Echoes and wanted to return to North Carolina. At that point, Reese joined The Journeymen And Kathleen, another group based in the Asheville area.

Runion left the Kingsmen in 1970 and was replaced by Jim McCallister. By 1971, Eldridge Fox had assumed the role of group manager for the Kingsmen. One of the first moves Fox made was to release McCallister and bring Ray Dean Reese back to the group. Fox (and later his son Greg Fox) managed the group for the next 30 years with Reese the constant bass vocalist throughout that entire period.

Reese married Carolyn Robinson in 1974. The couple had three children: Debra, Kelly, and Brandon. In 1998, Brandon Reese began traveling with the Kingsmen as their drummer.

After the death of Eldridge Fox in 2001, the Kingsmen Quartet name was transferred to industry businessman Charles Burke and subsequently retired. Ray Dean Reese and most of the other group members continued touring billed as the Carolina Boys Quartet with Reese assuming the role of group manager at that point. In 2004, Burke transferred the right to use the Kingsmen name to Reese which allowed him to drop the Carolina Boys brand and revive the historic Kingsmen Quartet name.

In late 2022, the then 83-year-old Reese hired a young bass singer named Drew Laney and began to reduce his own appearances with the Kingsmen. After Laney left the group in late 2023, Reese hired 19-year-old Brady Jones to fill the bass position.

Awards

SGMA Awards
SGMA Hall Of Fame (2008)
Vaughan-Templeton Lifetime Achievement Award (2023)

Singing News Fan Awards
Favorite Bass Singer (1979, 1985)
Lifetime Achievement Award (2024)

Solo Recordings

hi-res back cover
2002 Ray Reese And Friends (Song Garden Records/SG-9930): I Came On Business For The King; Life's Railway To Heaven; If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again; How Great Thou Art; Walking The Sea; The Eastern Gate; Healing Stream; I Am A Pilgrim; The Old Ship Of Zion; There'll Be No Peace Till Jesus Comes Again. (reissued in 2005 on the Kingsmen Music Group label as A Lifetime Of Music.)