Lex Grey

Biography

Lex Grey is a singer and songwriter whose music joins old-school blues, classic rock and a theatrical streak drawn from vaudeville and burlesque. She came up in New York City's 1990s after-hours blues scene, where she has credited blues player Bill Sims as an early mentor, and she worked at the Power Station recording studios, where she met guitarist and recording engineer Vic "Mix" Deyglio. Together they founded Lex Grey and the Urban Pioneers, a group that began as an informal acoustic jam in the back room of a Williamsburg bar.

The band played downtown rooms such as CBGB, the Knitting Factory, Mercury Lounge, Wetlands Preserve and Webster Hall, and later moved to the Catskills, where it runs its own studio, Bigger Pink. Grey has released eight albums with the Urban Pioneers, from the acoustic debut Deal Me In through Heal My Soul (2016), Usual Suspects (2018) and How Many Roads? (2023), which topped the RMR New York blues chart according to the band. Her stage work includes a year touring Europe as Jeannie in a revival of the musical Hair, fronting the 40-piece tribute orchestra Illuminati, and creating the Down and Dirty Lounge revue.

She has been inducted into the New York State Blues Hall of Fame and is an ASCAP songwriter. At Holland Tunnel Gallery in Newburgh she revived the Down and Dirty Lounge with pianist Albert Garzon in May 2022 and closed the 2023 season with Vic Mix in "The Rock Diva & Favorite Goodbye Songs."

Practice. Powerful blues and rock vocals with theatrical, vaudeville-tinged staging; original songs alongside blues, soul and standards, often with improvisation and guest players.