Gary Rue’s music honors the craft of songwriting, reminiscent of the Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison and Mose Alison. Influenced by nearly anything and everything musical, but most often by Frederic Chopin, Kurt Weill, The Beatles, Motown, and the poets of Tin Pan Alley and their Brill Building offspring.
A Gary Rue Performance is an ad lib, rapid-fire affair, riddled with a melodic cascade of personal favorites from his theatrical scores and pop triumphs, peppered with musical ideas (occasionally interrupted by an errant thought: he sometimes feels the need to explain the process), monologues on inspiration (and what does not inspire), oblique social commentary, and comic highs and lows (when good things happen to bad people), all thoroughly plumbed from the musical depths of piano, guitar, and a voice that soars, growl and bubbles within a sardonic Robin Williams/Noel Coward sense of humor. Influenced by nearly anything and everything musical, but most often by Frederic Chopin, Kurt Weill, The Beatles, Motown, and the poets of Tin Pan Alley and their Brill Building offspring.~Charles Bunbury
“Super songs… coarse, energetic poetry and unexpected vulnerability.”
San Jose Mercury News
“…these songs are a clear cut above the usual… each one features at least one major-league moment, phrase or hook…”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
Video of “Nothin’ But Time”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGTezmDP_sM
2010 Inductee, Mid-America Music Hall of Fame
2010 Inductee, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame
2011 IVEY Award winner for Music Direction for “Buddy! The Buddy Holly Story”, History Theater of St Paul
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gary.garyrue
Home Page: www.garyrue.com