Ray Legere

Inducted in 2019

Ray Legere, a well known premiere musician, was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia and learned his craft from the masters in Nashville and other places in the southern United States before returning home to make his living as a touring and recording artist playing before large audiences of up to10,000 people.

A master of several instruments, Ray was the winner of the Open Mandolin championship in Woodstock, Ontario in 1983 and went on to win this award again in 1986 in Kansas, USA.  In 1989 he was named the winner of the Old Time Fiddle Championship in Sackville, New Brunswick.  He won the ECMA title for “Bluegrass Artist of the Year” in 1996 and again in 2003.  He is a five time winner of the Eastern Division Bluegrass Awards for fiddle and mandolin “Player of the Year” receiving a Masters Award in each category.  The first year of this competition he received an award in three categories - fiddle, mandolin and guitar.  He also holds the Masters for “Best Fiddle Player” in the Central Canadian Bluegrass Awards.

At a concert in 1982 Ray filled the shoes for ailing Bill Monroe - the Father of Bluegrass.  His love of bluegrass music has found him playing along side such of his heros as David Grisman, Sam Bush, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas and Doc Watson, to name only a few.  He has had the honour of opening for such artists as Bob Dylan and Joe Cocker.

One of Ray’s favourite memories to date is of being asked impromptu by Rhonda Vincent to perform with her on the Grand Ole Opry stage when he was the young age of 21 years.  He did not have a fiddle with him at the time so borrowed one from her.  Another favourite moment was performing at Carnegie Hall with banjo wizz Alison Brown while on tour with Michelle Shocked.  This show took the band all across North America and to Australia.

Ray was musical director for the CBC television series “Fiddlehead Country” and was house fiddler for the franco phone music show “Pour L’amour Du Country”, now in it’s 17th year.  Ray has been seen touring with such great artists as Rita MacNeil, John McDermott and the virtuoso violin group, Bowfire.

He was inducted into the New Brunswick Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016 and has seven solo CDs to his credit.  Ray may also be heard on upwards to 500 recordings as session player and he also has his own recording studio and label in Sackville, New Brunswick.