Watch for Larry and Steve's Pages (COMING SOON)

My Bio                     

A Buckaroo Wanna-be  

 

I was introduced to music at an early age and I have my parents to thank for that.  We often listened to the 78s they had, Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Johnny and Jack, Stonewall Jackson, Flatt and Scruggs. Classic country and western, real music as my father would say.   I also became very interested through the influence of my cousins (Bob and Jeff)  and began listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Pink Floyd and of course my favorite, Neil Young.  As I have grown older, I still very much enjoy those artists, but have found new artist that I equally enjoy, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, James McMurtry, Warren Zevon, Tim O’Brien and Tony Rice.  

I moved to Olive Hill, Kentucky when I was 12 so my parents could semi-retire and to be closer to my mother’s family.  It was the best thing they could have ever done for me.  I was born late in their lives and about the time I was ready to experience being a teenager they were ready to slow down some. My mother said I kept them young and I had a wonderful time with them while they were alive.  We didn't always have a lot but we had  what we needed.  I was fortunate to spend my high school years, living on 145 acre Scout Camp and because of this I was introduced to a vast array of musical styles and artists who would come through the camp from time to time, and several cousin who were influential in my music path.  Thus my love of music grew, I had played in the typical school bands, but when my cousin Bob introduced me to the guitar- the world of song and music opened up and things have never quite been the same, and since that first Dixon hummingbird guitar twenty-five years ago, and several guitars since then, I find myself playing acoustic music and writing my own material.  I guess the blues men were right you have to live a little before you can really write what you experience.  At least that is how it seems to have worked for me .

I have had the good fortune to play with several different bands over the years;  in high school I played in a semi-country/bluegrass band called the Rusty-Rail Band;  then my cousin Bob Spradling, who taught me to play that Dixon guitar, became my musical partner and major influence. We recorded and played for nearly six years in two bands, Laze Daze, a country rock band and, after we changed personal and gained members from some other regional groups, we formed the group Alliance.  As with most bands we drew the need to search different paths and I put away playing for a while to start my family with Kelly.  Glad I did, though I never really put it away, my audience just grew smaller, Kelly and three beautiful daughters, Beth, Erin and Sarah. They have heard more than their share of songs that I will never do publicly, because they were too cheesy or just plain bad.

It was not long before I found myself involved in a collaborative effort with three individuals from Morehead, Kentucky, Steve Young, Larry Albert and Molly Carew (a varied group of artistic styles and interest). We preformed at the 75th anniversary celebration at Morehead State University, I believe we were called the Moonlight School String Band, or something like that.  We decided that we enjoyed playing together and began our regional adventure and played numerous festivals and events throughout the region.  After a year or so we added another singer/guitarist to the group, Mary Phillips and thus Caney Creek was born.  Caney Creek played for several years together, before I struck out on my own. Personal quest I guess.  Caney Creek has preformed together several times over the last few years to play at some special community/county events, I always thought we should bill ourselves as CCR, then folks would flock from all over to hear CCR.  Little knowing it was a Caney Creek Reunion and not a Credence show.  Caney Creek has also been  featured on two CD’s that Rowan County, Kentucky produced for its 150th birthday.  It is still great fun to play with those folks from time to time, they are forever friends and family.

Larry Albert and I have continued to play music together for sometime now and I can't imagine playing without him, he is my comrade.   He  convinced me to send in some original music to the International Bluegrass Music Association Fan Fest songwriters showcase and to my surprise I was accepted along with nine other songwriters from across the globe, literally, and we performed at the 2000 IBMA FanFest.  It was after that, the concept to create my first CD of original music “Life Lessons” was conceived.   I wrote this song in response to the lessons that living with Multiple Sclerosis have taught me since being diagnosed in 1990.   With the help of an extraordinary musician and soundman, and the third piece of my musical cohort and close friend,  Steve Rigsby,  the Life Lesson CD was born.   Steve produced and engineered the project and did a superb job. Steve has become one of my dearest friends over the years and I enjoy tremendously he and Larry  assisting me in my musical journey.  They make it fun, and their talent hopefully will rub off on me. Now we have decided that since they are such of part of all I do we would just create our band persona and call ourselves RUSTED CLAY, a play on my name and the website name.  It just had a ring to it.  

             
                       RUSTED CLAY 
                 (l to r:  Ted, Russ and Clay)   

 

I was  also fortunate that I also had people like Jesse Wells, one of the most gifted musicians I know, Chris Rigsby, guitar genius and Mary Phillips, my favorite female singer and dear friend, and many others who helped me on my first venture into the world of original music.  They are all fantastic and their depth of music knowledge and ability makes me sound good. 

Thus we are at this point, that a website has been developed, the second original CD  is being compiled and hopefully will be released this summer. It has been tough to get this one off the ground but it is coming together. I am currently playing and writing new songs, enjoying hearing friends like Rob McNurlin, long time friend and one of the best song writers around, and hanging out with my dear friend and brother, renown Texas musician and author, Bobby Bridger.  He and I met through our mutual dear friend and mentor Vine Deloria, Jr. who moved his camp in November 2005 as the Native American say, I miss him a great deal.  Below are the liner notes he wrote for my CD.  So, I hope you enjoy the site, and hope you come out and see Steve, Larry and Me play some music.    

–Russ Ward

                                

“There was western music, hillbilly, and folk.  Then came pop crossovers, rockabilly, and light shows, and the people music disappeared.   This album goes back to the origins when people composed and played music to please themselves and their neighbors, to etch into our memories and preserve the triumphs and tragedies of everyday life.  Let’s call it mountain music – when people gathered on the porch before the sun went down to lighten the hardships of the day.  Real mountain music is funky and scratchy. Designed for the hills and hollows, it tells the story of people who have come to grips with the stubbornness of life and, like the mountains, have never surrendered their lives to mysterious fortune.  Russ Ward has reached back into a distance past and retrieved the sounds of authenticity that made mountain music attractive to everyone.  Within these songs we find the soulful chanting that all peoples – children of the hills, plains, and mountains – are given by the lands on which they live.  It’s not clever; its not rehearsed; it’s who people are.  They passage of time has not relevance here; these songs take up where the first mountaineers began and march with the traditional cadence to remind us that our lives are a brief episode in the story of life but an episode filled with joy and understanding”.

                                    Vine Deloria Jr., author of Custer Died for your Sins,
                                                                     an American Indian Manifesto.