Debut recording of Jeff Ray & the Stakes recorded live in the studio. Authentic high energy roots and blues. Acoustic resonator slide-guitar suggests Muddy Waters and pre-war blues, combined with Sonny Terry-styled harmonica, heavily syncopated washboard, and gospel-inspired bass runs. This album moves!

VALHALLA captures the band

Debut recording of Jeff Ray & the Stakes recorded live in the studio. Authentic high energy roots and blues. Acoustic resonator slide-guitar suggests Muddy Waters and pre-war blues, combined with Sonny Terry-styled harmonica, heavily syncopated washboard, and gospel-inspired bass runs. This album moves!

VALHALLA captures the band live-in-the-studio: real people playing real instruments. Recorded on the coldest night of winter in Northeast Minneapolis, the band kept the studio warm with a high level of energy. You can hear an undertone of deep winter blues accompanying the soulful peaks that emerge from improvisation-based roots music. VALHALLA is a ramble that moves with the force of Mikkel Beckmen’s steady foot stomp and syncopated washboard, Nick Salisbury’s smooth and haunting gospel-inspired bass runs, combined with Ray’s resonator slide-guitar and Hurricane Harold Tremblay’s Sonny Terry-inspired harmonica.