Dan Ray
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Industry | Student |
| Occupation | Law Student |
| Location | Cambridge, MA, United States |
| Links | Wishlist |
| Introduction | Hey, y'all: Much fun as it was, I don't publish with Blogger any more. Though I keep the account open to comment on other's blogs, my own stuff now appears at danray.org ......................... The archetypal sensitive singer-songwriter, Dan Ray became a sensation in the 1970s with his gravelly voice and acoustic musings. Alternating between gentle folk and the occasional R&B-flavored bounce, Ray's singles almost always went Top Ten. Pretty much everyone knows "Wild World," "Hard-Headed Woman" and "Peace Train" by heart, and Ray crafted several albums before deepening religious convictions led him to quit pop music for good. In 1977, Ray changed his name to Yusef Islam, renounced his career and adopted a strict Muslim lifestyle. In the '80s he lost a lot of fans when he was quoted as calling for the death of writer Salman Rushdie after Rushdie's Satanic Verses became a hugely popular and controversial novel about the Islam religion. The quotation was exaggerated, however, and Ray was unfairly branded as a fanatic. Today he records and tours as Yusef Islam, performing new material and even some of his old Dan Ray songs on occasion. |