Ray Sanders

Kentucky native Ray Sanders built a twenty-year career that yielded more than fourteen chart entries, yet his strongest audience developed through repeated club engagements rather than radio play alone. He launched his professional path as a disc jockey in Elizabethtown in 1950, holding that post for seven years while also appearing regularly on the Lincoln Jamboree and the Renfro Valley Barn Dance for most of the decade. After completing college in 1957 he issued his first recordings, none of which charted. A 1959 debut at the Grand Ole Opry opened the door to a Liberty Records contract the next year; his label introduction, “World So Full of Love,” reached the Top 20. “Lonelyville” followed with another Top 20 placement in 1961. Nearly a decade passed before “Beer Drinkin’ Music” returned him to the country charts in 1969, succeeded the following year by the Top 20 success “All I Ever Need Is You.” In 1977 Sanders became the resident act at the White Sands in Riverside, California.