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Tom Gray and Mark Johnson first met in an
Atlanta music store. When Tom tried to sell Mark a Dobro guitar
out of the trunk of his car, the girl with Mark started
whispering, “Let’s get out of here.” Mark didn’t buy the guitar,
but he and Tom exchanged phone numbers. Soon the two were
getting together regularly, Tom playing lap steel and Mark on
bottleneck slide guitar.
At first, neither gave a thought to the
idea of forming a double slide guitar band. Then Mark saw
Ry
Cooder and David Lindley perform together at the New Orleans
Jazz Festival. “It was like a light came on over my head,”
Mark said. “I thought, that’s what Tom and I do.”
The two, along with singer Gina Leigh and a rotating cast of
drummers and bassists, formed Delta Moon. Their idea was
to weave the two slide guitars into one big sound, in the
tradition of great two-guitar bands like the
Rolling Stones, the
Allman Brothers, and the early Fleetwood Mac.
Playing clubs and festivals around Atlanta
and the South, the band quickly gathered a wall full of local
“best” Awards. After Delta Moon won the
International Blues Challenge in Memphis in 2003, the band
widened its travel to include the western US, Canada, and
Europe. Gina Leigh left the band in 2004.
Kristin Markiton sang with the band for the next year and half,
and then Delta Moon decided to continue as a quartet with Tom
Gray writing and singing all the lyrics.
“I didn’t start out to sing lead in this
band,” says Tom, “but like kudzu I’ve taken over.”
Actually, he has plenty of experience fronting a band. In his
pre-lap-steel days Tom was songwriter, vocalist, and keyboard
player for a group called The Brains that recorded two albums on
Mercury. His songs have been recorded by
Cyndi Lauper, Manfred
Mann, Carlene Carter and many other artists. As Mark says,
“Delta Moon has found its voice.”
 Tom
Gray
lap steel guitar,
keyboards & vocals
E-mail Tom
Originally from Arlington, Virginia, Tom has written songs
recorded by Cyndi Lauper (“Money Changes Everything”), Carlene
Carter, Manfred Mann, and many other artists. Tom was the leader
of the 1980s rock band The Brains and has since recorded and
performed with a long list of vocalists and groups.
Tom uses Dart Custom Guitars.
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