Biography

Last year, Tray Wellington released his debut full-length album, Black Banjo, capturing the attention of tastemakers and his peers alike. He was on Spotify’s Grass Roots playlist cover, appeared on David Holt’s State Of Music series on PBS, earned coverage in publications such as The Bluegrass Situation, No Depression and Folk Alley, was interviewed by roots music authority Rhiannon Giddens for a BBC radio documentary and featured on W. Kamau Bell’s United Shades of America on CNN. “This is a record that breaks right through subgenre boundaries,” wrote Barry Mazor in a review of Black Banjo for the Wall Street Journal. “If bluegrass is about spotlighting virtuosos, here’s a new one people will be checking in on for some time to come.” Now, Wellington continues to break those boundaries with his cover of Kid Cudi’s massive 2009 hit, “Pursuit Of Happiness.”
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Already well into a busy touring season that includes high-profile performances from Tahoe’s Winter Wondergrass to upstate New York’s Grey Fox festival, banjo phenom Tray Wellington is back with his first new music since last summer’s acclaimed Black Banjo (Mountain Home Music Company) — and for the first time, he’s got his band with him. With plenty of performances already behind them — the group was assembled during the run-up to Black Banjo’s release — the Tray Wellington Band is a tight-knit quartet of young players who provide plenty of musical muscle to push in all the directions the versatile bandleader is intent on going.

Case in point, the new single: “Pursuit of Happiness,” a bold cover of the massive 2009 Kid Cudi hit. A deliciously creative arrangement engineered by the band — Wellington, bassist Katelynn Bohn, Josiah Nelson (mandolin, fiddle) and guitarist Nick Weitzenfeld — offers a startling revisioning of the original, transforming its electronic and processed elements into acoustic equivalents that maintain the urgency and edginess of the original in earthier tones. Wellington handles the verses’ mix of rapped and sung passages with unexpected yet unsurprising mastery, while Nelson’s and Weitzenfeld’s vocals come to the fore in memorable choruses. An extended outro features all of the vocalists, Bohn’s rumbling bowed bass, foot stomps and handclaps as the song subsides into a wistful, almost melancholy ending that accentuates the subtly somber aspects of the song.

With its organic tones, and deft alternation between complex, layered textures and more airy ones, listening to “Pursuit of Happiness” in the immersive audio format of Dolby Atmos is an especially engaging experience. Dolby Atmos spatial audio is a sound experience you can feel all around you. Familiar from its “surround sound” application in thousands of movie theaters” Dolby Atmos reveals “depth, clarity and details like never before,” and can be streamed on Apple Music, Amazon Music and TIDAL.


“In the past couple years the importance of appreciating hip hop for the poetic art form it is has been very developmental in my musical progress,” Wellington notes. “One artist I instantly felt drawn towards when starting that journey was Kid Cudi; with his unique sense of harmony and touching lyrical style, it really spoke to me. When I heard ‘Pursuit of Happiness,’ I fell in love, as it touched on issues we all struggle with in life — and with mental health ever present in everyone’s life, the ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ in today’s world is one of the most important and necessary journeys to embark on.”

About Tray Wellington
Growing up in western North Carolina’s Ashe County, Trajan “Tray” Wellington heard a lot of music — and from the first time he heard the banjo as a young teen, he was, he says, “hooked.” Within a few years, he had joined with a few friends to form Cane Mill Road, an acclaimed band of youngsters whose wide-ranging brand of bluegrass quickly found favor with an equally wide-ranging audience. By the end of 2019, the quartet had released three well-received albums, recorded with bluegrass and Americana star Jim Lauderdale, and performed at festivals across the country, including Grey Fox, Merlefest and the IBMA’s Wide Open Bluegrass, culminating in a 2019 IBMA Momentum Band of the Year award — and, for Tray, individual recognition as an IBMA Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year.

With growing acclaim for his talent and a lengthening list of his own, individual accomplishments — including the release of his debut solo EP; leading workshops at Merlefest and Grey Fox; a coveted position as an assistant at banjo master Bela Fleck’s Blue Ridge Banjo Camp; a cover story interview in Banjo Newsletter; and an invitation to Mike Marshall’s prestigious Acoustic Music Seminar — Wellington decided to blaze his own musical and professional trail, showcasing with his Tray Wellington Band at the IBMA’s virtual World of Bluegrass in the fall of 2020. He returned the following year to host the IBMA’s Momentum Awards ceremony and perform on the organization’s Wide Open Bluegrass festival Main Stage. A recent graduate of East Tennessee State University, Tray currently makes his home in Raleigh, NC, where he works with Pinecone, the Piedmont Council of Traditional Music, when he’s not on the road. Comprised of its namesake, bassist Katelynn Bohn, mandolinist/fiddler Josiah Nelson and guitarist Nick Weitzenfeld, the Tray Wellington Band has already appeared at prestigious festivals and venues across the country, including the Pagosa Folk’n’Bluegrass festival, Wintergrass and Winter Wondergrass, with performances at others, such as the Strawberry Festival, Pickin’ In The Pines and Red Wing Roots on the books.