I’m absolutely THRILLED to have found my single favourite picture of Ray! This one has eluded me for almost 25 years.
It was shot the first time he stayed at my place with the band (he’d usually crashed with someone else before then), and he stayed a few extra days after they left for Montreal, until Johnnie Pagani got back to town.
We went to By The Way for Breakfast and he was so impressed with the presentation of the plate, that he wanted it captured…and of course Ray can’t even show a plate to be photographed without upstaging the food. The lighting was perfect.
Funny thing; while we were leaving, Ray ran into a friend who he had just been talking with at a party in Vancouver a few days earlier, not knowing she was also coming out…after leaving we were walking down the street talking about how funny it was to run into people you know in unexpected places.
Then, one of my co-workers was walking towards us and I waved to say hi…and he was with a friend of Rays…after the usual round of hello’s and relating the now three funny coincidences, we went on to my friend Candice’s place…and it turned out he and she had known each other a decade earlier at The Pier, in Vancouver. The fact that this day also created my favourite picture of Ray is the cake to that icing.
It was found, together with its near twin, otherwise alone on a sheet of negs mostly shot in class. I just ran across it moments ago in literally the very last book of negs in the house (at least the last one I can find right now).
Still have not found the set of 4 sheets of Ray and The Goners playing at The Slither Club opening with Handsome Ned and the Sidewinders. That would have been perfect.