1. David Lasater Ragsdale was born on April 3,1958 and is an American musician.
18 Facts About David Ragsdale
1. 2.
David Ragsdale is best known as the violinist and guitarist for the rock band Kansas from 1991 to 1997 and from 2006 to 2023.
3.
David Ragsdale toured for four years with Louise Mandrell before joining Kansas, and he released a solo album in 1997.
4.
David Ragsdale started violin at the age of three at the insistence of his mother, training in classical music.
5.
At the age of 16 in 1974, as he was getting more proficient on guitar, David Ragsdale heard the song "Can I Tell You" from the Kansas album Kansas, featuring the hard-rocking violin of Robby Steinhardt.
6.
David Ragsdale realized that the violin could be prominent in rock, and his interest in violin was renewed.
7.
In 1980, David Ragsdale entered the University of Tulsa on a music scholarship.
8.
David Ragsdale studied violin with Paris-trained Nell Gotkovsky, aiming to become a symphony violinist.
9.
David Ragsdale played with the Tulsa Philharmonic during his college years, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in music.
10.
David Ragsdale felt that the album was missing violin sounds, so he arranged a violin part and made a new recording with his own violin mixed in.
11.
David Ragsdale kept in touch for the next four years, sending Ehart copies of his best work.
12.
David Ragsdale left Mandrell's tour in 1989 and moved to Los Angeles where he played rock music.
13.
David Ragsdale appeared on the band's 1992 album Live at the Whisky, the 1994 song "Wheels", and the 1995 album Freaks of Nature.
14.
In 2006, David Ragsdale rejoined Kansas to replace the retiring Steinhardt.
15.
David Ragsdale toured extensively, and performed on the Kansas albums There's Know Place Like Home, The Prelude Implicit and The Absence of Presence.
16.
On May 22,2023, Kansas announced on their website that David Ragsdale was leaving the band.
17.
David Ragsdale has played violin from the age of three, and guitar from his teens.
18.
One experimental violin he played was a prototype headless electric model handcrafted in graphite composite by Ned Steinberger; in September 1991 this "priceless one-of-a-kind" prototype was stolen from David Ragsdale's backstage dressing room at Showcase in Raleigh, North Carolina.