Ray Kamalay

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Ray Kamalay is a Detroit-born American jazz guitarist and singer who leads the Red Hot Peppers. He has recorded jazz with his group and worked with folk acts like the Chenille Sisters, Johnny Frigo, and Howard Armstrong. He also teaches music, giving talks and demonstrations on folk music. He earned a philosophy degree from the University of Detroit and began his professional music career in 1974, focusing on historic American music.

In 1983 he started the Red Hot Peppers, a band that has included guests such as Walter White, who also played with the Harry Connick Jr. orchestra. His work with Howard Armstrong earned a nomination for a W.C. Handy Award in 1998. In 2008 he launched the education program "Freedom, Slavery and the Roots of American Music," using the guitar to illustrate sounds from different American movements and linking them to events in history, like slavery. He has performed this program across Michigan for Black History Month.