[1] He played for more than seven decades and performed with many artists, including Robert Lockwood Jr., Billy Boy Arnold, Morris Pejoe, the Rolling Stones, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf.

[3] Shortly after he was born, Gray, an only child, moved with his parents to a farm in Alsen, Louisiana, a few miles north of Baton Rouge, where he lived during his childhood.

He returned to the United States in 1946 and spent a brief time in Alsen before relocating to Chicago, where he had relatives, including a new baby sister, Annette, born in 1951.

[4] After arriving in Chicago, Gray began spending a great deal of his time in the growing postwar jazz and blues club scene.

One day while he was sitting in at a club, he caught the attention of Big Maceo Merriweather, an important jazz and blues piano player in Chicago (from Detroit).

As a result, Gray obtained steady gigs with groups like Little Hudson's Red Devil Trio (Hudson Showers) and the guitarist Morris Pejoe before moving into extensive work as a session musician in the recording studio accompanying Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley, Billy Boy Arnold, Pejoe, and others.

He recorded with many leading figures of the blues, including Dusty Brown, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Homesick James, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Billy Boy Arnold, Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Hubert Sumlin, Lazy Lester, Little Walter Jacobs, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Little Milton Campbell, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Reed, and Koko Taylor.

[7] Gray left Wolf's band in 1968 and returned to Alsen, Louisiana, due to the death of his father and to assist his mother with the family business, a fish market.

In the summer of 1999, Gray toured Europe with Marva Wright and her band, giving concerts of "Louisiana music" under the sponsorship of Blue House Records.

In 2006, Gray was featured along with Jerry Lee Lewis, Pinetop Perkins, Marcia Ball and Little Red in a concert at Morgan Freeman's club Ground Zero in Clarksdale, Mississippi, which was recorded for the DVD Falsifyin', produced and released by SunLion Films.

That same year, Gray starred in the independent film The Glass Chord as Saul Solomon, an aging musician with Alzheimer's disease.

[9] In June 2017, Gray went into Dockside Studio with his great grandson DeAndre Tate and The Creole Cats band (Paul "Lil' Buck" Sinegal, Danny Williams, Stan Chambers, and Oreun Joubert) to record 92, aptly titled after his age.

[14] [15] In 1998, Gray was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album for A Tribute to Howlin' Wolf, released by Telarc Records.