“David Ralston is what is known as a triple threat musician. He’s an emotionally charged vocalist, a mean as hell slide guitarist and an excellent songwriter whose blues tinged tunes cross the border between blues/roots rock and straight ahead contemporary alternative pop.  The combination is a stimulating brew that is sure to stir your soul! We had a ball recording his latest CD “I’ve been waiting” And I’m confident that you will dig hearing it as much as we did making it! ” – Duke Robillard

Ralston didn’t really get serious about the Blues until he moved to Japan.  “Okinawa is a strange place… you have people here from all over the world.  I learned about music in Okinawa.  I played drums at a local jam session club and merchant sailors from all over the world would come in and play.  I would ask questions about guitar and took a little from each of them.  Blues was always my thing though sin ce it was the most REAL sounding to me.  The rhythm comes from being a drummer at heart.  When performing I need to feel a certain amount of percussion in my playing.  That is the drummer in me,” Ralston explains.  In 2000 David Ralston opened for Magic Slim and Otish Rush in the Japan Blues Festival.  He played a solo acoustic set for around 8,000 enthusiastic fans.  “They dug it and Otis Rush asked me to join him with Magic Slim for a jam at the end.

Prior to working with Duke Robillard Ralston sought out the production services of one Delaney Bramlett, the legendary rock musician/producer who has been credited for both teaching Eric Clapton how to sing and introducing George Harrison to the slide guitar, as well as working with Duane Allman.  David was eventually introduced to Bramlett through a friend of a friend and was somehow able to drag him out of a self imposed retirement.  “I always had a kind of sixth sense about these things,” Bramlett said.  “When I heard a tape of David I just heard something that tickled my heart.  There was a raw talent there.  I invited him to come out and try working with me and it worked out really well.  We did something here that I’m real proud of.  David has a talent for settling in and learning fast.  After some time in the studio I’d spend some time with him, helping him find his voice, telling him not only what to do, but why he should do it.”  Bramlett also said of Ralston that “David was a joy to work with.  We all took him to our hearts.  It wasn’t long before we thought of him as family.  David Ralston’s a phenomenal guitar player… he doesn’t realize how good he is.”  David Ralston drew power and inspiration from the rock ‘n roll gods when he recorded with George Harrison’s rosewood telecaster, Eric Clapton’s Fender Champ amplifier (used on Clapton’s first album) and the same 1962 Fender Strat that Duane Allman used  on Delaney’s album because what came out of those instruments was exciting new sounds and it was all very much signature David Ralston.

David Ralston has the unique talent of bringing musical icons from different cultures together. He’s been living in Okinawa Japan for the past 17 years playing and recording with Japan’s biggest artists as well as helping United States Marines with substance abuse issues.