''Michael Ray'' is the debut studio album by the American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

artist of the same name, and his second overall. It was released on August 7, 2015 via Atlantic Nashville. The lead single, "Kiss You in the Morning", was a number one hit on the US ''Billboard''

Country Airplay Country Airplay is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States since January 20, 1990. This chart lists the 60 most-listened-to records played on 150 mainstream country radio stations across the country as monitored ...

chart.

Content

Ray has writing credits on only one song on his debut, "Run Away with You", which he co-wrote with

John Rich John Rich (born January 7, 1974) is an American country music singer-songwriter. From 1992 to 1998, he was a member of the country music band Lonestar, in which he played bass guitar and alternated with Richie McDonald as lead vocalist. After d ...

who first recorded the song as part of Big & Rich for their 2014 album, ''

Gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

''. Their version was released as a single on January 19, 2015 and was a Top 20 hit on the Country Airplay charts.

Track listing

Personnel

* Dave Cohen – Hammond B-3 organ,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

* Perry Coleman – background vocals * Charlie Judge – Hammond B-3 organ, piano * Troy Lancaster –

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

* Tony Lucido –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

* Jerry McPherson – electric guitar * Russ Pahl –

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

* Danny Rader –

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

* Michael Ray – lead vocals * Mike Rojas – Hammond B-3 organ, piano * Adam Shoenfeld – electric guitar * Nir Z. –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

Chart performance

The album debuted on the ''Billboard'' 200 at No. 21, and the Top Country Albums chart at No. 4, with 11,300 copies sold in the US in its first week. The album has sold 51,000 copies in the US as of January 2017.

Album

Singles

References

{{Authority control 2015 debut albums Michael Ray (singer) albums Atlantic Records albums Albums produced by Scott Hendricks