I TOOK A HIKE FOR MY FRIEND RAY CARGO TODAY. Ray passed on yesterday in Austin and I was wishing to honor him in some small, personal way that speaks to our friendship over the years. Really, no words could ever possibly be adequate. The closest, maybe is simply the word Friend. What a powerful, holy, healing, blessing of a word that is. Can you even imagine a word that better describes the sharing of life with another human being that you hold in a precious place of honor and gratitude? Only a few months ago Ray told me that he was very ill. We talked a few times over the weeks and I emailed him too. It was unreal, this feeling of there possibly being something going on in his body that would take him away from us. I believe it is unfathomable not only because while we are alive we cannot understand not being alive, but also because in our Soul’s Knowing, we are so very powerfully aware that we go on and on. If it were not for Ray Cargo and Joe Hendrick and Carl Johnson, I am almost certain that I would never have become a musician and then a songwriter. Those three gracious, fun-loving, good hearted men allowed me to sing with them, and from that magical union we all become songwriters. I eventually moved away to seek some path into what I thought was the “music business.” I tried Dallas/Ft Worth, I tried Austin, I even tried Whitefish, Montana. You know a man is possibly searching a little too hard when he goes to Whitefish to become a famous musician. My break came in Seattle, where a song of mine was accidentally heard on a cassette tape and became the number one song in a radio station’s history. So I left Austin and moved to Seattle and have been here ever since. Over the years I’d see Ray a very few times. He and our friend Mark Carter came to Seattle one year after my first album was out. We went white water rafting and they met all my friends here and became part of the friendly gang. Then I saw Ray at my 20th high school reunion, the only one I’ve ever made. Then a year later at my sister, Marilyn’s, funeral in Amarillo. I visited him a couple of times in Austin in the early 90s and he accompanied me one year when I had a “headlining” spot for SXSW. Little did I know that such a spot for SXSW simply means that you go on at 1:00 a.m. in a bar full of drunk people. Ray was there for me, looking on, cheering, keeping me from feeling too terribly humiliated. We would write or send each other some music now and then. Then back when we both got started on FB, Ray wrote me one day and said, “I laugh at all those smart-assed remarks of yours that your fans don’t even know are smart-assed.” I laughed at that. It was the same ol’ Raybone. That’s what I and Joe and Mark and Buddy and Carl called him. We had all had nicknames since back in the late 70s when Joe and I took to rearranging everyone’s names and turning them into silly versions. I was Matchell Antiquey Tumbleton, Joe was Joke Retched Hendrikey. Ray became Raybone Limb Carpool. Seriously, we went by those names for years. I started matching up words with Matchell whenever I’d write Joe and Ray from Ft Worth. The return addresses were things like: Apache Matchell, Satchel Matchell, and our favorite: Hatchet Matchell. Joke and Raybone would sometimes call me Hatchet after that. We started out writing music that was very influenced by America and Elton John and Bread. What a combo, huh? Ray was a wonderful piano player. We were completely in love with a little known Elton John movie soundtrack album called “Friends.” Yep. That was a huge album in our lives. I played that LP for many, many years. And we wrote a number of songs which Ray played piano on that were very much in the vein of some of those songs. Those were precious times, around when Ray’s first two kids were born. So much love flowed in our music. Over the years I had somewhat of a career for quite a while, radio play in hundreds of cities and playing concerts all over the U.S. I never knew for sure if my old friends liked the songs I did because we weren’t around each other much and I knew everyone else had moved more toward bluegrass. But one day after Ray and I reconnected, we were talking on the phone and he said, “Michael, I’m proud of you, man. You’ve done good.” Ask anyone who knows Ray, when Ray was proud of you it was a thing that made you happy. About six weeks ago I had a thought about something I wanted to run by Raybo. I knew he was sick and we talked about it, but I never asked him for a timeline. I never wanted him to have to say how long he thought he’d be around. Instead, I told him about a friend of mine with cancer of the pancreas who had lived more than six years past the time doctors had given him. I wanted to hold up something open ended for Ray because, like all of you who love him, we wanted him to have a very long time here. We had never played music together in all the years I’d been a recording artist. My idea was to write Ray and ask him if he’d like to play guitar or bass or sing harmony on one of the songs that was to be on my next album. I let him know that I understood his circumstances might make it impossible to commit, but I just wanted to offer it in case he was interested and it was possible. I didn’t hear back from Ray about that for about three weeks. I did not take the silence personally. No one can know what we face in a circumstance like Ray’s. I honored whatever he was going through. But to my surprise and joy, he finally wrote me back. What he wrote was a profound blessing that I will hold close to my heart the rest of my life. “Dear Michael, I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I had a heart attack and some more blood clots, but now I think I’ve stabilized. What you’ve offered me is like a fairy tale to a worn out old musician like me. If it’s not too late, I’d love to do it.” I called Ray that day and we talked. We thought we’d aim for a week or so after Ray Fest because we both knew he’d be exhausted after a full day of friends playing music and celebrating him. I planned to fly down and we’d go into the studio together. I sent him a song to listen to. We all know now that Ray couldn’t make Ray Fest. That he was too sick by then. And of course, he and I never got to record together. I wish we had, but really, it is okay. That we meant to, that Ray wanted to and that I was feeling so happy about the possibility is enough. Because nothing that ever exists between the hearts of two friends is ever really lost. I love Ray. I still do. He is here. I hiked with him today and he was in the breeze, in the treetops and in my own heart. I don’t say that to be poetic. I don’t say it to be hopeful. I say it because I know it. Ray is still with us, he is still in your heart, as is everyone you have ever loved. I am very sorry for those of you who were around Raybo in these recent years and who will miss him the most, because you were able to call him up and play music or go for a beer or head to the lake whenever you wanted. And for you Carla, his precious wife and best friend, who took such good care of him, I know you will miss him. But I know also that he is especially in your heart and alive in your eyes and in your life. This little message and the video I took today is just a very small part of my honoring a man who was so very much his own self, with his own ideas and his own wonderful humor, his own music and gifts and love. Thank you, Ray Cargo. Thank you for everything. Raybone, life without you would not have been nearly as rich and funny and beautiful. ~ Michael Tomlinson PS, I would love to email anyone who was a friend of Ray’s a song. Or even if you weren’t but wish you had been. If you’d like that, email me at mt@michaeltomlinson If you like, tell me a thing or two about Raybo and ask for a song. I’ll email you one right back. michaeltomlinson
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 13:39:13 +0000
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