Ray Scott Live @ Docie's Dock Fort Walton Beach, FL

🎤 Country Star Ray Scott LIVE at Docie’s Dock – May 30! 🎶

Get ready for an unforgettable night of outlaw country grit and southern soul as Ray Scott brings his powerhouse voice and raw storytelling to Docie’s Dock on Friday, May 30!

Known for hits like “Those Jeans” and “My Kind of Music,” Ray Scott delivers a show that’s as real and rugged as the roads he’s traveled. If you love old-school country with a modern edge, this is your kind of night.

The term “country music” may have changed over time, but Ray Scott’s definition of it has not. Whenever you press play on a Ray Scott song, you know exactly what you are going to get: tried-and-true, dyed-in-the-wool, salt of the earth, country music. That’s how the country music traditionalist built his first ten albums and that’s how he’ll build the next 10 - which conveniently starts right here.
Billboards and Brake Lights, Ray Scott’s 11th release, is a collection of twelve songs by the North Carolina native that remind real country music fans what it’s like to go on a journey through song. Rooted in his signature traditional sound, Scott straddles the line of growing as an artist and standing on that firm foundation of being exactly the same guy his fans have come to love.  Self-effacing, self-aware, and vulnerable and with a humble confidence that stops shy of arrogance, Scott’s methods of storytelling shine brighter than ever before.
“I just write songs and then see where they fall. With this album, just like some of my older projects, it’s got a lot of songs that were written fairly recently and then it's got a couple that are 10 or 15 years old. I don't really know what the rhyme or reason is. I just always have songs in my back pocket, and they seem to resurface and want to be recorded at certain times. For the new songs, I see an evolution in me for sure, but then again, I've been this same person for a long time.
“I wrote the first single ‘Ripples’ with Tony Mullins five years ago but now was the time to record it. It’s got kind of an almost bluegrassy feel about it which is not something folks are used to hearing, but it was exciting to me. ‘Long Black Cadillac,’ that's an old one people have always liked, and I thought it fit in well with this group.”
This group consists of songs like the album’s title track which paints the stark reality (or is it Ray-ality) of what life on tour is really like while “Keeper” highlights a different kind of peril of the road. It takes a real man to stand strong in the eye of temptation and while most everyone has faltered in that moment at one time or another, Scott’s lyrical masterclass on the art of polite decline is one for the ages.
No stranger to delving into dark and/or intensely personal times and misdoings for song material, the new batch on Billboards and Brake Lights is no different. Even when he didn’t mean to, different life events, such as the recent passing of his parents, make songs like “Old Roads and Old Friends” hit harder and in ways that now cut to the core. Rather than omit those songs from the album, he once again chose to include them knowing full well that for the rest of his life, he’ll have to pour a refresher on the pain when he plays them in concert.
Also born from the depths of his pain and serving as the album’s final offering is “I’ll See You Again.” Written on the morning of his dad’s funeral and sung later that afternoon at the actual event, this deeply personal song simply stuns you silent. As intimate as the song itself is, the recording was just as personal as Scott’s three young nieces came in from North Carolina specifically to sing background vocals on the track.
“Honesty in songwriting is what it's all about. People respond to that, and you realize there are a lot of kindred spirits in the room. It's just necessary. As for performing them, I think it's gotten easier for me over the years to be able to go onstage and rip the scab off.”
Honesty in music is a calling card Ray Scott has held firmly throughout his career and has defined him in more ways than one. Back in the 00’s when he was a staff songwriter on Music Row pulling in a salary to write songs for other artists, the radio “Bro-Country” tide was on the rise. It didn’t sit well with Scott’s stomach as it wasn’t authentic to him, and he’d be damned if he was going to sell himself out to discredit the music that he loved so much. Not only did he walk away from that staff writer life, that walk-off was also the catalyst that drove him back to writing for himself and striking out on his own.
Lucky for Scott, he packed his bags when he left that life because inside that sack of songs was “I Fall in Love with You Again.” Written in 2001 and promptly discarded by his publisher as “too dated for radio,” the song was forgotten by Scott until the summer of 2023. That’s when a buddy asked what happened to that song he played for him a couple decades ago. After blowing the dust off the DAT tape demo, Scott fell in love with it all over again and 20+ years later it has taken its rightful place in the lineup and is ready for world to hear.
One benefit Scott has with Billboards and Brake Lights is the ability to release and promote it however he likes. His last two albums, 2020’s Nowhere Near Done and 2021’s Cover the Earth, both fought Covid in one way or another. Ironically, that same pandemic gave Scott his new research tool, the award-winning Ray-ve In the Cave, Scott’s then weekly livestream show where he and guitarist Joe Cook would hang out in Scott’s basement with their guitars, a beverage or two, and perform. Named one of Pollstar’s Top 50 Livestreams, that outlet gave him more of a one-on-one, interactional relationship with his audience than he ever had before.
“I’m really excited about the album because there's some new sounds on it. The instrumentation production is a little different and I was able to get some more country sounds on it. We’ve got some fiddle and mandolin and they’re played by some truly incredible players.”
Incredible players is quite the understatement. A quick look up and down the roster of musicians on this album and you’ll see names like 3x / current CMA Musician of the Year Jenee Fleenor on fiddle and mandolin, Musicians HOF Member / 14x ACM Drummer of the Year recipient Eddie Bayers along with a litany of other musical giants. Those players, paired up with producer Jim “Moose” Brown helped shape Billboards and Brake Lights.
“Jim is a really good songwriter himself and an extremely talented musician. He just knows how to bring it together and that’s what a good producer does. I mean, I do write these songs, but you start with that shell and it grows from there. Moose is a great one to lead the musicians and these players, well they’re all just killer and that comes through in the finished product.”

As Scott’s musical career has now eclipsed the 20-year mark, something few artists get to experience, the whiskey-tinged baritone expresses a gratitude, even if he doesn’t completely understand it all.
“It’s all been a blessing, not just here but all over the world, which blows my mind. I recently went to Switzerland, Austria, Norway, and Spain and we’ve been playing overseas for years. This might sound cliché, but it really is a blessing to be able to do that and to expand out into the world that way. When I first got to town, I never would've thought that I'd be going to Europe on a regular basis playing my music for people. Not to mention being able to run up and down the highways here at home in the States, but here I am.
“I'm still doing what I love for a living. I'm doing what I feel is my calling. Of course, there's some rough days and the traveling can beat you up, especially as you get older. But anything this life or this business has thrown at me in all these years, nothing has made me think anything other than this is still a dream job.”

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Docie's Dock, 24 Miracle Strip Parkway Southeast, Fort Walton Beach, United States