David Ray Skinner
Born and raised in Nashville, David Ray Skinner developed a deep affinity for art and music at an early age. During the mid-1960s, he performed in several garage bands and appeared on local Nashville television programs. His early talent as a songwriter was recognized while he was still a high school senior when his Christmas song, “He Slept On,” was published by Broadman, the publishers of the Baptist Hymnal.
In the early 1970s, Skinner attended Carson-Newman, a Baptist college in East Tennessee, where he studied art and journalism. During his junior and senior years, he served as editor-in-chief of the college newspaper, The Orange and Blue, earning two Southeastern College Newspaper Competition awards. In addition to his collegiate work, he drew editorial cartoons for the Morristown Citizen-Tribune and spent his summers drawing caricatures at Opryland, USA—an experience that proved invaluable to his later career as a cartoonist.
After graduating cum laude in 1974, Skinner worked as a writer, reporter, and artist for The Sevier County Times in the Smoky Mountains. His nights and weekends remained dedicated to music, playing guitar and banjo for various bluegrass bands in the Gatlinburg area.
By the mid-1970s, Skinner had returned to Nashville to freelance for advertising agencies and record original music. However, in 1977, his multifaceted talents led him to New York City. There, he rose from cartoonist and paste-up artist to become the Art Director for the international music trade magazine Record World. During his tenure, he created custom illustrations and caricatures for music icons including Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Graham Nash, and Billy Joel. He also drew a weekly “music cartoon” for the magazine.
Skinner later joined Doubleday as the Art Director for their prestigious Literary Guild Magazine. In this role, he created marketing treatments for literary giants such as James Michener, Stephen King, and Bob Woodward, as well as celebrities like Candice Bergen and Dr. Ruth Westheimer.
In 1984, Skinner moved to Atlanta and co-founded Indelible Inc., a print, design, and advertising agency. The move south also marked a return to his musical roots. Skinner became involved in Johnny Cash’s gospel project, Return to the Promised Land, for which he designed the project’s logo and co-wrote the title track with Johnny Cash.
This period also saw the culmination of his lifelong interest in Civil War history with the release of his concept album, John Hunt Morgan: A Southern Legend (the stripped-down version and precursor to Morgan’s War-Song). In 1997, the album was nominated for Gettysburg College’s prestigious Lincoln Prize. Skinner followed this with Jolly Roger Tailgunner, a musical tribute to his father’s experiences as a tail gunner in the South Pacific during World War II.
In addition to writing and recording his songs, since 2001, he has also published the online literary magazine SouthernReader.com while continuing to provide design and marketing expertise to a diverse roster of clients, from The Home Depot and Citibank to various universities. His recent creative highlights include a watercolor painting commissioned for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which now hangs in the Justice’s Chambers in Washington, D.C.
In November 2022, Skinner was honored by his alma mater with the Carson-Newman Triumph Award in the field of Arts and Social Sciences, recognizing a lifetime of significant contribution to the creative arts.