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head in order to get into the
club. Since the members of the band weren't allowed to sing it was the
responsibility of the waiters to get the crowd going.
After his work at the Red Onion
Ray's next banjo job was at the Bourbon Barrel. He was now
playing with a four piece group. Ray played banjo, Jimmy Ploska
played banjo, Hector Girgenti was the front man and Artie Brooks was on
guitar. Artie's guitar had two bass strings on the last two
strings and the first four strings were guitar strings. He would
play chords and bass at the same time.
This job lasted until 1978 but in
1972 Ray was involved in an serious automobile accident. He was riding
in a car with Artie Brooks and Ray ended up in the hospital. He
was in a coma for three days and he had lost his right elbow. The
doctors told him that he would never play the banjo again but that only
made him more determined to get back the use of his arm. When
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he was finally released from the
hospital his right arm was in a cast but bent at the same angle you
would strum a banjo.
His first attempt at rehabilitation
was to use a small electric guitar. He could play a few notes but
because of the limitations of the cast he couldn't move his hand very well.
In the kitchen he found a hack saw and cut the cast off around his wrist.
This allowed him to play the guitar with less difficulty but his wife
was not impressed. She called the doctor and he was told to come to the
office to get a new cast. Two weeks later Ray is cutting the cast
off again. The doctor finally told his wife to leave him alone, "If he hurts himself
he will be the first to know."
After a year Ray still had the cast on and
the doctor admitted that the best thing he could have done to
rehabilitate his arm was to do what he was doing. With the cast
still on Ray started to go back to the Bourbon Barrel and play
with the group again. He loved the banjo so much he couldn't stop
playing the instrument. His elbow was held together now with scare
tissue since the bone that held his elbow together was no longer there.
As part of his recovery that state
told him he could go to college and learn a new occupation, His choice
was to study "Musical Instrument Technology." At the time he had been
experimenting with instrument repair and he met a gentleman from The
Buffalo Banjo Club by the name of Sam Donatelli who showed him the finer
points of repairing instruments. This led to a new repair business doing
refretting, refinishing and repair work.
In 1974 Ray started a full time music
studio. This included teaching, repair work and selling instruments.
Hohner Harmonicas was making stringed instruments at the time and Ray
was having success with them. Ray approached the company with the idea of paying his expenses so he
could sell them at festivals. The first festival was a success but when
it came time to go to the next one Ray was informed that Hohner was
discontinuing their line of stringed instruments. The company did make
a high end five string banjo but not a fours string. Ray convinced the
company to make one and he bought. He is the owner of the only one made.
Now this isn't the end of the story.
The work was enjoyable but it didn't bring in enough |
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