Stan Ray’s Soul Satisfaction

The singer, drummer, and songwriter returns to the Tybee Post Theater with original songs, familiar soul music, and an ensemble of Savannah area musicians.

Stan Ray has spent years moving between roles on Savannah’s stages. Some audiences know the singer at the front of a tribute show. Others have seen him behind the drums with The Accomplices. At Victory North, he has helped bring local musicians together around original songs.

Ask Stan what holds those experiences together, and he comes back to the people beside him.

“The friendship of shared musical moments IS the story,” he says.

That thought runs through Stan Ray’s Soul Satisfaction, returning to the Tybee Post Theater on October 4. Stan will lead a large ensemble through new original songs and music associated with Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, and James Brown. Three of the singers joining him, Dolette McDonald, Patti Kelly, and Sara Fullerton, will each have a solo song. It is a show built to let individual voices be heard within the sound of a group.

Stan Ray sits down with Charles Maring for a Savannah Proper conversation about finding his place in Savannah’s music community, the musicians who have shaped his journey, and the original songs behind Stan Ray’s Soul Satisfaction. Interview and film by Charles Maring.

Feeling the Music First

Stan begins his account of childhood music with a joke about getting 12 eight tracks for a penny from the Columbia House Record and Tape Club. Then he remembers something his mother told him: as a baby, he would cry when songs in minor keys came on the radio.

“I’ve always felt music,” he says. Church was where that feeling began to take shape.

Stevie Wonder became a model for Stan as a singer, drummer, and songwriter. He remembers reading about Wonder in a book at his grandmother’s house. “He’s the bar,” Stan says.

Nashville was where Stan began seriously working in all three roles. He played with a 12 piece horn band there, and he still speaks about that sound with delight. “There’s nothing better than a group of people moving air together.”

Finding a Living and a Community in Savannah

Music was not the reason Stan first came to Savannah. In 2001, he moved his family here to open Savannah Wine Shop on Broughton Street. The business ran until 2008. He later worked in wine and spirits sales, and in 2010 moved his family to Tybee for what he calls a fresh start.

After closing the shop and leaving his sales job, he needed another source of income. In Stan’s words, he was “forced to sing for my supper.”

Performing became steady work. It also led to creative opportunities he had hoped for and to the musicians who became part of his life here. Stan calls the area’s music community a “family.”

Stan Ray behind the drums with The Accomplices at Homegrown Summer Jam, an annual celebration of Savannah’s original music community. Photograph by Charles Maring.

That family can be heard in the shows its members build together. At Homegrown Summer Jam 2026, Stan played drums with The Accomplices at Victory North. He was also among the musicians who helped create the first Summer Jam, giving Savannah’s original songwriters a stage of their own.

Another Savannah Proper story, about the Homegrown Collective’s Georgia on My Mind concert, shows Stan in yet another setting. He played drums and sang with the backing band for an evening that brought local performers together and raised money for Emmaus House. He closed the show singing James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” with the artists gathered onstage.

Those performances speak to the range Stan enjoys. “I’ve always been able to sing,” he says. “That’s really my thing and I love what the human voice can do for the soul.” Drums took more deliberate learning, and sometimes they are his favorite instrument. “I love to get lost in the groove.”

Making Soul Satisfaction

Soul Satisfaction began with a decision Stan made ahead of a Homegrown Summer Jam a couple of years ago. He put his name forward for the lineup to give himself a reason to assemble a band. He laughs about it now, though gathering the players remains the hardest part of the project. Everyone, he says, is playing all the time.

The announced ensemble for October 4 includes Ben Keiser, Ryan and Patti Kelly, Chris and Sara Fullerton, Dolette McDonald, Jared Hall, Brandon Walker, Dray Harris, Eric Nelson, and John Tisbert. Dolette, Patti, and Sara will each step forward for a solo song. Readers who want to know more about Dolette can revisit Savannah Proper’s profile and video conversation with her.

The show will pair Stan’s new original material with songs made famous by Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, and James Brown. What connects them for Stan? “Soul, brother…soul!” And, he adds, the horns.

One of the new songs is “The Bull,” which Stan wrote with Brandon Walker. They are also in the process of recording a record, with a release show planned at the Tybee Post Theater for March 21, 2027. For now, the October concert offers a chance to hear some of the new music onstage.

Stan Ray performs his original song “What’s It Gonna Be” live at Victory North in Savannah. Filmed by Charles Maring.

What Stays After the Show

Stan’s explanation of the name Soul Satisfaction is simple: he wants people to feel good while they are there, “and hopefully it sticks around when you leave.”

It sounds like a modest hope for a show with so many musicians and so much history behind it. But it gets at what Stan values in making music here. A song offers an evening of pleasure. The people who play it together carry that connection into the next room, the next concert, and the next original song.

Cockspur Productions presents Stan Ray’s Soul Satisfaction at the Tybee Post Theater on Sunday, October 4, 2026, at 3 p.m.