Greg Brown was the founding guitarist and had songwriter credits for or with Cake. He later co-founded Deathray, which played my concert series.

Cake with Greg Brown played the Cubberley Community Center Theatre in September, 1995 and then the multipurpose Auditorium in July, 1996 where “The Distance ” was let loose. Deathray played I recall once at Cubberley and once at Stanford‘s Coho.

The five-man band was built around Mr. Brown’s love for an eclectic mix of genres, including soul, big-band jazz and old-school country, passions he shared with Cake’s co-founder and lead singer

John McCrea.

“It’s hard-edged, easy-listening music that’s fairly low volume but not folksy, economical in its arrangement but not boring, and really exciting and dynamic with good songwriting,” Mr. Brown told The Los Angeles Times in 1995.