Ray the Musical Handy Man

Ray is an original member of the Carpet House Band. He is a handy guy to have drop in too, since he plays both bass and lead or rhythm guitar --at the same time, and he can thump the bass to make it sound like a drum.

Ray has had a closet full of blues since he was 5 years old. Let me explain. When Ray was young his dad played the clubs and friendly get-togethers all up and down Hastings Street. Ray remembers his Dad talking about it, but Ray was 5 and does not remember the particulars. He remembers his Dad admiring and talking about a “Sonny Boy”. Chicago blues recording artist Sonny Boy Williamson lived in Detroit’s Hasting street for about 2 years in the 50’s, so Ray’s Dad probably heard him play or maybe even played with him, along with all the blues musicians up and down Hastings Street. His Dad played down home Delta blues with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica in a rack. When he was not playing, he kept the guitar in a closet. During the day, when the coast was clear, Ray would take the guitar out and strum and play it, as best a 4 or 5 year old could. Kindergarten put a stop to this self-education though. But the education did not completely stop. Ray never saw his father practice. But when the family went to Belle Isle, the guitar would magically appear from the trunk of the car and Dad would start singing like Muddy Waters. Also, when Ray and the kids ran and raced in the playground on 29th street, they heard lots of music coming from the house across the street. Uncle Jesse White’s now famous 29th Street house faced the park. Every weekend was a long weekend at the house on 29th street, and all the bluesmen in Detroit played there for years with Uncle Jesse White. The kids played outside, and the bluesmen played inside. Ray lived just around the corner.

Ray knows his Dad sounded like Muddy Waters because he had a reel to reel tape of his father playing. When Ray listened to the tape, he heard his Dad singing songs about the factories, making up the words as he went, free styling it, as Ray put it "Forget all the counting, the I IV V stuff." His Dad let his mood dictate the progessions and rhythms. It was unadulterated, gut bucket, deep Delta blues, made up on the spot to be consumed like a shot of corn liquor, and with the same punch. "It was amazing that these old guys could follow each other" Ray said, but they did. The reel to reel tape was unfortunately destroyed in a police raid, so memories are all that are left of his father's performances. But in later years, Ray played with Uncle Jesse White at the Attic Bar, the same Jesse White he had heard from the playground. Uncle Jesse's style was old, and Ray had to follow the same free-styling his father had used. It was a little bit like going home just one more time.

But, as I was saying, Ray plays two guitars at once. And attaches a Boss DR-5 drum machine/effects box to the whole thing … and sings But, putting it that way is wrong from Ray’s perspective because to him it’s all just one big instrument. He has played them for so many years and has invented so many ways to meld the pieces together, that it just feels right. When he plays a single guitar, he feels like he's playing only half an instrument. Kinda like a harmonica with only draw notes I guess. And he can play his instruments singley very well too, as is evidenced by the fact that he has bass students, guitar student’s, and even keyboard students. By the by, if you are looking for lessons from a man who may be a natural genious, and has a knack for explaining things, Ray is the man.

Ray has been in a few bands where, after a while, the bass player, or guitar player, or even the keyboard player just starts failing to show up. When Ray chased them down to find out what was up, they would say that his mega-instrument multi-handed Eastern diety-like playing made them feel like they were not needed in the band. Ray could play their parts … simultaneously. So, out of necessity, Ray has slowly evolved into a one man band. And calls himself The Handy Man. Watching him, you have the experience guitarists had when they first watched Jimi Hendrix in action: He’s hardly touching the strings and barely moving his hands, but all this sound is coming out ….

Ray’s technique is mysterious and you wonder what is going on in his head. But Ray has always been an inventor. He bought his first guitar from a pawn shop, but built his second one. He made the body himself, got a piece of neck from the pawn shop, and pulled other parts from another pawn shop wreck. No diddly bow, that home-made guitar had a built in speaker and amplifier. He built it as a teenage. He drove his mom to a 3 hour dialysis every other day. He built the guitar so that while sitting outside of Henry Ford Hospital he could practice in the car. He played the single guitar and was in a bunch of bands until he was 20 when he started his own business and stopped playing music for about 8 years. He also built an electronic drum set inserted into a guitar body, using door bell buttons to actuate the drum set. Sonny Kendricks, an excellent jazz drummer, tried it and offered to trade him a real drum set for it. Ray once fixed the suspension of his car with coat hangers, and it worked for the life of the car, he only had to swap out the coat hangers every once in a while. When he makes a pizza he uses spaghetti sauce instead of … well, I might get into trouble if I gave away the special sauce, but you get the idea. My guess is that if you walked through Ray’s house you would see lots of very clever and unique fixes on things. Each of the appliances would have a story to tell.

When Ray started playing music again at age 28, he gravitated towards the bass. Emmanual Young and Mississippi Al taught him bass lines. He started off with a 4 string but was not happy. He bought a 5 string, and then a 6 string but was still not happy. So he drilled 2 more holes into the 6 string and turned it into an 8 string. He attended a lot of jam sessions at Alvins on the Wayne State campus. Unhappy with 8 strings, he started playing “double” as he puts it at age 32. The first song was “Mr. Magic.” He has never looked back.

Like a lot of musicians, Ray likes a lot of styles. His “home base” genre is smooth jazz, but he still loves disco, and loves and plays the oldies like Motown, Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Philidelphia style, Staple Singers, and of course blues. In his bass playing, he has been influenced by Stanley Clarke and Victor Wooten.

He sometimes takes his portable recording studio, a Boss BR-8 64 Virtual out to Belle Isle and records there. He is basically a one-take player. When he gets the idea for a song he may practice a few parts of it, and then record it in one take. Subsequent playings only diminish the original, he says.

So, if you are out at Belle Isle and the sun is setting and you see a man doing too many things at once, and in the twilight you might swear he has more than the usual number of hands, then, well, you have met Ray the Handy Man.

The Handy Man is available both for fixing or filling out combos, or for performances by himself. Including his singing, he can easily sound like a three piece band. And he’s available for lessons.

For more information, call (313) 841-4122.