Possibly the first professional musician to record with an electric mandolin, Raley played with Western swing fiddle legend Cliff Bruner and the Texas Wanderers, as well as other Houston-based bands. (Bruner, a former sideman with Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies, formed the Wanderers following Brown's death in 1936.) Raley used a Martin A-style mandolin with a pickup built by Ted Daffan, the proprietor of a Houston radio repair shop. It was Raley's playing that first inspired Tiny Moore to pick up the electric mandolin.