Entertainment: Aaron Ray Vaughan

Aaron Ray Vaughan

Local Singer Releasing First Solo Album

by Tim Hudson

Music fans will be sporting a big grin come December 3rd, as local favorite Aaron Ray Vaughan releases his first solo album.

“It’s my first solo album so I’m really excited about it. It's red dirt country, so it’s a lot different than anything I've done before,” he said.

The effort titled Sparks will also be heralded by a series of CD release shows, beginning with an evening at Crossing 2nd. “I have a tentative release date and party scheduled for December,” he said, noting that the date is also the same night as the opening of Christmas in the ‘Ville.

“I’m going to have the release party at at Crossing 2nd and I'll sing and play some of the music from the album, and then I'll have a DJ there that is going to play for the rest of the evening so we can all get together have some fun, talk about it, and mingle.”

The record will be somewhat of a departure from what Aaron’s fans are used to, since his recent output was more of the classic rock persuasion. “Prior to this I was in a Christian band. We played more like southern rock, but it was Christian-influenced. It wasn't in-your-face worship or anything, but it had a lot of that spiritual faith-filled stuff that we carry infused in our music,” he said. “I did that for 10 years or so.”

The new direction, however, was somewhat dictated by fans.

“After 10 years of singing that syle of music, I just decided after talking to a lot of family and friends to record the original stuff I had been doing over the years. A lot of people told me you should do this song or you should do that song, which wasn’t really what we were doing. I veered off that and decided that I wanted to start recording the music that everyone had been asking for,” he said. “So I decided to step away from New Kings, which was the band that I was with before, and start doing the solo stuff. I was just going to record everything for family and friends so they could have the songs that they wanted, and it turned into a situation where a lot of people were asking me to play at their venue. So it just kind of evolved.”

It has been a big experience being a part of the music and the people who make it. “It’s that that hunger for live entertainment. I would like to hit some festivals. Ideally, I think my goal is that I want to do a show at the Cains Ballroom sometime next year, and then we'll see how the release goes and how much of a response we get from it,” he said. “But if I can get some festivals and other dates scheduled on the weekends, and people really want to get out to see me, and it's not too cold in the winter, I will try to make those happen.”