The Steel Guitar Forum

Okay fellas & gals ... here's a challenge!!!

Ray Noren is a bit of a mystery man. As I mentioned in the post on Zane Beck, he was Zane's first inspiration. Read the following email from Bill Dye:

"Greetings, Mr. Griffith. I'm Bill Dye from Kansas City, Missouri, USA. I read your posting about Ray Noren in the Zane Beck thread with great interest. The elusive Mr. Noren lived in Kansas City sometime back in the fifties, and I've been trying to get any info on him, and contact him if possible. In Winnie Winston's book, he mentioned that Zane added knee levers to Ray Noren's steel in 1952 here in K.C. I,ve played that steel myself!! It's a triple 8 Bigsby that Ray sold to Hal Clampett later, who made it non-pedal again. Mike Black, a frequent Steel Guitar Forum visitor, now owns it. A terrific non-pedaL steeler here in town named Frank Kay knew Ray back then. He said Noren had a trio- him, bass, and drums- and played straight jazz. According to Frank, Ray was a phenomenal player and VERY advanced for the time. Frank, who I occasionally play with, should know. After leaving Cowboy Copas's road band in 1951 or so, he had a western swing band that played around here until the late sixties. At various times he had Thumbs Carlille, Phil Spurbeck, and Curly Chalker in his band!! Anyhow, any information you could share on Ray Noren would be very much appreciated. Thanks, Bill Dye"

I emailed that Zane said Noren had become a jazz bass player in NYC and had quit playing steel because of an eye problem which would have been exacerbated had he continued to play steel guitar. Bill Dye emailed me as follows:

"Lee Jefriess (former Big Sandy and the Flyright Boys steeler) is a player with a strong interest in finding out more about Ray Noren as well. He asked Tom Morrell about Noren once, and Morrell also said he'd heard he was in NYC, and that he might have been working as a psychic!! Tom never heard Ray Noren play, but he had heard glowing reports of what a remarkable a player he was."

If you do a search on "Ray Noren" you get the reported death of a poker expert by the name of Ray Noren in 2002 ... extraordinary steel guitarist, psychic, poker expert ... could this be the same guy?

So, come on let us in on the secret ... what do you know?

Graham

I heard a tape Zane had of Ray. Zane and Ray shared an apartment in K.C. The tape was of a rehearsal with a female singer for a show they were getting ready for. Just Ray and the singer in the living room of the apartment. Ray sounded like Johnny Smith playing behind the singer, intros, turn arounds and all. It did not sound like a steel guitar.

Zane told me that the guitar players in town would give Ray their old flat wound strings to use when they changed strings. He would desgise his guitar to look like a keyboard by attatching a music stand to the front and hanging a towel across the front to hide the legs and knee pedals. Then he would go to the jazz clubs in town and set in with them. The club owners wouldn't know it was a steel guitar.

With his eyes going bad, and the frustration of not being accepted with a steel guitar in the jazz circle, he quit steel and started playing bass. The last Zane knew of him, Ray was in Chicago playing bass in a rock and roll band. I'd love to get my hands on that tape I heard.

Randy,

Maybe you should get in touch with Faye and see if the tape is still around and if it's okay to copy it? Seems like that audio record should be preserved if possible.

Graham

,,,mm

Mike,

Thanks for the information. We now need those players like Emmons that travelled and saw Noren in action to tell us anything else that they might know. What are the chances of you posting an image of the Ray Noren Bigsby?

Graham

mmm

Speaking of brother Ray and Big E, I just finished reading the new Ray Charles biography; on "Volcanic Action Of My Soul" Buddy's name doesn't get mentioned ( ) but the writer says, that on Wichita Lineman the steel guitar "gleams like a railroad tracks in the moonlight"

Ray Noren is alive and well and living in New York (L.I.) and can be reached at RaymondNoren@optimum.net

I've been talking with Ray for the past few months and he is quite a guy! A really wonderful gentleman and his wife Trudi Mann is lovely, too. There are many myths out there about him which I've asked him about.
For one, he didn't quit playing steel because of an eye condition.

Anyway, I've been trying to put Ray's story together and it's been very interesting and challenging. One of the amazing things about Ray: as brilliant a musician as he was, he left music many years ago to pursue other things in life and he has accomplished a lot of other things in that time. Some of the music memories are a little hard to recall when you've been out of it for as long as he has. One of my favorites things that he says is, "Music is our drug of choice."

Thanks for telling me about Ray a few years back, Mike.

http://slo.craigslist.org/msg/2600414101.html

That's a dbl. !

I would buy that guitar if I could and I've even thought about selling my T-8 to buy it. Anyone want to loan me a grand? I think a lot of great music was plyed on this guitar.

I reread the ad and I'm confused.

I'm trying to sell it for the original owner to help with his moving expenses.

So if Ray wasn't the original owner, then it wound up in the hands of someone who owned it before Ray..?

Or maybe he is selling it for the "previous" owner the he got it from..

Also the first post on this thread mentions a Bigsby with knee levers...

Ray was the guitar's only owner until recently--he just sent this guitar to the current possessor of it. He is someone we all know well around here. He is selling with the intention of giving the money back to Ray, an act of kindness.

Ray and Zane came up with the idea of adding knee levers to this one. The Bigsby with pedals came later. Ray used to play this guitar with a little purple curtain draped in front so people couldn't see what he was doing--not that he was trying to fool them, they were just confused and used to think he was dancing.

Like I said, I've been compiling conversations with Ray in the hopes of telling his story. He is a very interesting and brilliant guy.

Boy I would love to hear Ray's playing. Are there recordings available?

That's another dbl. !

Dave Zirbel wrote:

Boy I would love to hear Ray's playing. Are there recordings available?

Nope. But somewhere there is a long lost tape of Ray as mentioned in the original post. Ray thinks he has a copy somewhere.

He was in Red Foley's band with the Ozark Jubilee, replacing Bud Isaacs (also Curly was in the other band at the same time). As many OJ clips as I've watched, not one of them has Ray in it. He was in the band with Grady Martin and Fiddlin' Red Herron. He also did some sessions and I've been trying to figure out what they were, but no luck yet. Ray was a road musician mostly. I like to think of him as the Buddy Bolden of steel guitar!

Ray - 2005

Ray (second from the right with mustache)circa 1957 with Dick Bills, Fiddlin' Red Herron to his left.

The website I stole this from said KC 52, so I guess Kansas City 1952.

Looks like Ray's guitar may have sold! Who's the lucky person?

Oh c'mon, it's gotta be a member..., don't be shy just because we know where you live!

--click--> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VAtu62ZmAI

Thanks for posting, Doug! Sounds like Louis Jordan with strings instead of horns. Outstanding!

I really like Ray’s style. He has a lot of energy and hot licks, slants, and the boo-wah tone with his volume pedal. You can see his right leg turning to twist the volume pedal for that effect. He’s probably using a Bigsby or a Fender V&T pedal.