Bray Brothers
Bands / Ensembles
The Bray Brothers were a bluegrass band from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, made up of brothers Harley Bray (banjo), Nate Bray (mandolin) and Francis Bray (bass), with guitarist and singer Red Cravens. The brothers met Cravens at a square dance around the fall of 1954. Billed as Red Cravens and the Bray Brothers, and sometimes as the Bluegrass Gentlemen, the band recorded two sides for Five Strings Records of Eola, Illinois, and a single, "Barbara Allen," made at a Peoria radio station for the Independence label. From 1960 to 1963 it had a weekly radio program on WHOW in Clinton, Illinois, using shows taped at the band's apartment. John Hartford sometimes played fiddle with the band. The Brays and Cravens filled in as Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys for a show in June 1958 and on several dates in the summer of 1960, and served as house band at Monroe's Brown County Jamboree park in Bean Blossom, Indiana. Rounder later issued the band's radio tapes as 419 West Main (1972) and Prairie Bluegrass (1976) Nate Bray died in 1970 and Red Cravens in January 2021.
In the newsletter
- No. 8 Summer 1996