The best tributes aren't always planned, or obvious. Sometimes they just happen. Like today's impromptu moment on a backwoods road outside Seattle, honoring the recently-deceased r&b great - Ray Charles.

Late in the afternoon, after a great train ride plus burgers and shakes (see below), we were en route to to the Middle Fork Trailhead along the Snoqualmie River.

Playing as we travelled: a fave compilation tape, "Twangin." Weaving through the forest, a tune came on by a real hard-road guy named Sandy Bull, titled, "Ray's Dream." Based on Ray's classic rocker, "What'd I Say," but all instrumental. Plangent, syncopated layers of guitars, bass, pedal steel, and one of my very favorite instruments - a round-backed, eight-stringed Mid-East lute called the oud.

The tune was from Bull's otherwise-middling '91 CD, "Vehicles."

(For non-pareil Sandy Bull, try his now-rare '63 Vanguard debut, "Fantasias," wherein he channels the blues of Roebuck "Pops" Staples, plus classical and desert sounds, or "Re-inventions," which combines choice cuts from the '63 release, and '65's "Inventions").

Hearing "Ray's Dream" in the deep woods brought back the Ray Charles songbook, especially the driving, upbeat stuff he did - which I always liked best -"Greenbacks," "Hit The Road, Jack," "Hallelujah, I Love Her So," and others.

I once transported the famously blind Mr. Charles, when working as a limo driver in Chicago during a time-out from college. I picked him up at O'Hare, and drove him a short distance to a fancy hotel. When we arrived, he said, with impeccable timing and brevity: "I take it we're there?"

So much smoother than other celebrity passengers. Such as Calvin Klein, whose big question (fashion-related, only, I suppose) was, "So, where's the gay action in Chicago?" I didn't know, but called a dispatcher who had all the tips, including the inside dope on the leather scene. Which I dutifully passed on, of course.

Or Mel Torme, who Jonesed all the way to the airport, worried about missing his flight.

And Michael Jackson's cheap, classist wardrobe manager who made me take him to the South Side to see "the poor N******." He was very taken aback when a black man in a pork pie hat - whom I instantly recognized - waved to me from an old grubby Dodge Dart at 63rd and Stony Island Ave.

Mr. Manager asked who that was. And I reported, "he was sitting where you were a week ago," in the backseat of the same limo, going to a family celebration at a nearby seafood buffet.

Long, long, long silence. We went crosstown for some barbeque at Jo-Tees, 87th and S. Ashland (my suggestion).

Hinckty-man loved the rib-tips and Wonder Bread. Yet no tip for me after a 12-hour drive-about, including - and I remember this quite distinctly - a stop at a sporting goods store to pick up jock straps for the brothers Jackson, who were at the Mill Run Theatre in north suburban Niles that night.

Mr. Ray Charles was also scads classier than Ed McMahon, with his rented blonde en route to Chez Paul, or the venal Cloris Leachman (more on which sometime later).

Not to mention Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. Yes, I Drove The Dead. I pulled up to the curb at O'Hare, and a woman with long dark hair in bowling shoes, pleated skirt and Hawaiian shirt ambled up, ready to enter the limo. I looked askance. Seemed a drugged groupie, at best, and I must have conveyed that. She responded haughtily, "Grateful Dead?"

D'Oh! It hit me, skanky wardrobe aside. Donna Godchaux! Singer on the then-recent Terrapin Station LP. Band member. Husband Keith keyboardist, even. Yes M'am.

They all moseyed aboard, minus Jerry and drummer Bill Kreutzman, who were in another vehicle. Bob Weir (vocals, guitar, charisma) climbed in front, asked me for a "filter cigarette" (no go) and wondered if this whole thing wasn't a big, big thrill for me. Too cool for me to figure out.

Band members in back talked loudly about Bill's heavy cocaine Jones, and how they felt, quite, quite firmly, that he'd been allotted his fair share on the plane. It was all kinda boozjwah.

Today - before the Ray Charles Moment and associated limo-driving reminiscences - our family rode the Snoqualmie Valley Railroad, from North Bend to Snoqualmie Falls and back. It's a nice jaunt.

This five mile common carrier railroad allows museum visitors to experience a train excursion aboard antique railroad coaches through the Upper Snoqualmie Valley.

Schedule, etc. here. When the train stops right after passing Snoqualmie Falls, position yourself in one of the middle cars, to look WAY down upon the river kayakers. Quite a sight, if you can stand the vertigo.

In North Bend afterward, walk a short block from the train depot over to Scotty's Dairy Freeze, established, 1951. Get a burger, shake and fries (skip the ho-hum onion rings): and take it all out back onto one of the aqua-green picnic tables, with drop-dead views of 4,000-foot Mt. Si.

Then drive to the Middle Fork Trailhead, via 468th Ave. off 1-90, East. Left off exit ramp, then loop back west a very short distance, and right onto Middle Fork Rd. (Don't bear right onto Lake Dorothy Rd. at Y). It's a good 12-15 miles in, rd. turns to gravel, plenty of chuckholes. You'll see the sign for "Middle Fork Trailhead" on the right. Enter lot, path to lovely arched wooden bridge, across and then left onto the fairly flat, riverside trail. Outstanding scenery.

Here's what you do: listen to the river.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at June 13, 2004 09:04 PM

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