Ray Johnston Band

Ray Johnston Band plays Green Elephant on Friday, October 9, starting at 4 PM. It's a Texas country show from a Dallas native, and the set is built around the songwriting Johnston has been working on for several years.

Johnston's path to the stage is an unusual one: he made the jump from professional athlete to professional musician, and he still plays the guitar he used back when he was on the basketball court. That personal history sits alongside a more difficult one, too. He spent five and a half years in remission from leukemia, an experience he says now drives his charity work and his music, which he describes as leaning on the positive side of life.

That outlook has a track record behind it. His album No Bad Days translated into more than 120 shows a year and seven singles on the Texas Music Chart, with placements on ABC's Nashville and Netflix's The Ranch, plus a cut on ALABAMA's Southern Drawl. He co-wrote "More Crown Than Coke" with Paul Overstreet, Roger Creager and Matt Boggs, and recorded the six-song EP #GoesGoodWith with producer Eric Herbst at the Panhandle House in Denton. Outside the music, he partners with Luke's Fastbreaks to make hospital gowns more comfortable for patients.

The show is at Green Elephant, 5627 Dyer St, in Dallas, and it kicks off at 4 PM.