The View From Here: Remembering Ray Pickens

From the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: “Ray Lewis Pickens passed away unexpectedly August 12, 2007. He is survived by his wife, Alice (Kanack) Pickens; children, Daphne & Alexander; parents, Homer & Norma Pickens; brother, Drew (Jill) Pickens; nieces, Laura, Beth & Kate Pickens. He is also survived by Alice's parents; brothers; sisters; nieces, nephews and dear friends.”

I got a call Wednesday night from Alice Pickens. Going through Ray’s things, she had come across my business card, and was reminded of Ray’s work on several of my projects. He had written music to perhaps twenty of my pop songs, many of which were used in “Karaoke Knights,” wrote incidental music for my Cleveland production of “Imaginary Invalid” and a full score for my yet unproduced adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer In A Day.”

Ray was a brilliant composer, and wrote in every imaginable genre. He was educated at the Eastman School of Music (where he was the winner of their concerto competition), and was a fellow at Tanglewood and Yaddo. In New York, Ray had a very successful career composing, singing, playing on, and producing national television and radio commercials, as well as playing piano and singing in clubs and restaurants and performing with the Metropolian Opera Orchestra. In Rochester, where he and Alice were to settle, Ray had an opera of his performed to much acclaim, and taught piano and composition, playing for several schools and many stage productions.

Ray found me on my website on-line, looking to create a musical of Moliere material, and for a time, I was exploring Moliere’s “Amphitryon” as a possible musical, though I found myself continually reverting to my familiar iambic pentameter, which was not particularly condusive to musical composition.

Ray did, however enjoy my collection of original lyrics, and through an amazingly productive period of perhaps six months, he churned out one tune after another, the result of which I occasionally get to perform as “Karaoke Knights, a One-Man Rock Opera”. It was Rays blues-tinged composition of “The Dreaming Tax” that gave me the idea for my “Charles” character, which was to lead me to the plot concept of the show, featuring five distinct characters vying for the karaoke competition prize.

Ray had his good days, as well as his bad, and his death comes at the conclusion of what was seemingly a troubled time. I think what amazed me most about him was that, on the rare occasion that his music did NOT capture the spirit of the song as I'd intended to perform it, the very next day, there would appear in my inbox a completely different interpretation of the song, crossing genres as disparate as Rap, Tango, Blues, Folk, Techno, and Tin-Pan Alley, along with the occasional nods to Elton John and Kurt Weill.

I performed the show in my living room last night for a couple of friends, just to connect once more to the spirit that Ray left behind, something I hope to continue to do for many years to come, and couldn’t help but think of him in the middle of the performance of this favorite song. Perhaps some of you will remember the fast and furious tune that Ray provided:

NEXT

I’m on top of the heap I’ve been climbing
And I’m proud of these muscles I’ve flexed
My success somehow needs better timing
Cause already I’m on to the next.

I spend much of my lifetime frustrated,
Chagrined and decidedly vexed.
Such feelings are never abated
When their owner moves on to the next

There is always a next:
It comes on with a burst
And somehow I am cursed
With not getting immersed
With the thing that comes first
It’s as if I rehearsed
Fearing if I dispersed
All my words sharp and terse
All my fears would be nursed
And my life would turn out for the worst.
There is always a next.

I stop out at the bar for a nightcap
And I sing as a lady inspects
She leans over to give me a light tap
But already I’m on to the next.

Such romantic pursuits light my fires
And some guess that I’m just oversexed
But I never fulfill those desires
Cause I keep moving on to the next

There is always a next,
It comes on with a burst
And somehow I am cursed
With not getting immersed
With the thing that comes first
It’s as if I rehearsed
Fearing if I dispersed
All my words sharp and terse
All my fears would be nursed
And my life would turn out for the worst.
There is always a next.

If a Greek tragedy was in store here
And I found I’d been Oedipus Rexed
Would I put out my eyes from the horror
Or would I just head on to the next?

When it all falls apart at the ending
See the good part’s not getting perplexed
‘Cause you can’t upset someone who’s sending
All his hopes down the line to the next.

There is always a next,
It comes on with a burst
And somehow I am cursed
With not getting immersed
With the thing that comes first
It’s as if I rehearsed
Fearing if I dispersed
All my words sharp and terse
All my fears would be nursed
And my life would turn out for the worst.
There is always a next.

I will die; there’s no getting around it
And when people all pay their respects
They will say I left life like I found it
Cause by then I’ll be on to the next.

There is always a next:
It comes on with a burst
And somehow I am cursed
With not getting immersed
With the thing that comes first
It’s as if I rehearsed
Fearing if I dispersed
All my words sharp and terse
All my fears would be nursed
And my life would turn out for the worst.
There is always a next.
There is always a next.
There is always a next!