More Mr. Nice Guy

Ray Mason is everyone's favorite musician

by David Ritchie

Unfortunately, when someone is described as a musician's musician, it turns out to be something of a euphemism: an exceptional artist whose credentials are unmatched but whose effect on the public is nothing compared to his effect on other musicians. He's the guy whose presence is so powerfully felt by the music community that you wonder why you don't hear more about him. After he's dead, someone puts out a tribute album, Evan Dando or Eric Clapton professes his adoration, and presto! Recognition. Too late.

The Northampton music community decided to jump the gun. Over the course of several years, Ray Mason's songs were recorded in secret by a variety of bands who'd always loved his music. The objective was to surprise him with a tribute album, their homage to the man considered the elder-statesman of the Pioneer Valley music community. The CD, It's Heartbreak That Sells, will be released April 10 on Tar Hut Records and distributed by Steve Earle's E-Squared label, which could plant it squarely on the national Americana charts.

Mason (alive and quite well at 48 years old) is, to say the least, flattered. But, of course he jokes about the eventuality when shoppers spot a CD subtitled A Tribute to Ray Mason: "Wow, what happened to him . . . I knew the guy was gettin' old."

In truth, Mason hasn't slowed an iota. March 22 sees the release of Castanets, a new CD that features some of the best songs of his career. His side-project, the Lonesome Brothers, also has a completed album awaiting mastering. His hundred-odd performances each year are the most rockin' affairs for which any attendee could hope. But, as befits a musician's musician, attendance during his last show in Worcester wouldn't have filled many music halls. People don't know him here yet. But if the tribute is successful, all that will change.

Ray Mason was born in Holyoke in 1950, and he spent his first twenty years there. He was living in a housing project right next to the Sears store where he would constantly look at the guitars. Finally, his grandmother presented him his first Silvertone for 8th grade graduation. That was 1964. By '65 he'd started his first band, but he'd still never seen a live show. In '66, too young to get in, he huddled in the pitch-black alley behind a bar called the Beachcomber trying to hear snatches of Barry & the Remains. "We were waiting for them to open the back door, and the sound would just kind of shoot out." He actually got close enough to the Rockin' Ramrods once to pick up some fashion tips. "Not only did these guys sound great, they smelled great. They all reeked of English Leather. We all had to go out and get English Leather. I'm sure if I ever cracked open a bottle it would take me right back."

Today, it's Ray Mason who the fresh-faced kids strain to hear through club doors in Northampton, and he's always ready to help them out. Frank Pattalaro, of the King Radio, calls him one of the most generous guys he's ever met.

"Any band that comes along that's any good in Northampton, they'll always get a gig when they're first starting out opening up for Ray," Pattalaro says. "He has nothing but praise for anybody who's trying to play original music around here."

As 18 bands and 50 some-odd musicians will tell you, he's just about the nicest guy anyone's ever encountered. His knowledge of music is immense. His demeanor is so pleasant, you can't believe he ever drove a car in this state. And as one of the album's participants sums it up, "he just generally gives off a great vibe."

But it's the songs that set Mason apart. He's a terrific songwriter, what you might call a craftsman. Charlie Chesterman (formerly of Scruffy the Cat) sees a quality in Mason's songs that is simply absent in others'. "I think as a songwriter I'm kinda hot-shit, but there's something about what Ray does that seems really carefully thought out and just really genuine. Ray's got something going on that most other people never even get around to touching."

One of Chesterman's favorite songs on Mason's newest CD, "You'll Never Catch Me Out of Her Mind," is a song about getting dumped, with the following cocky line: "Seems the old tried-and-true had let me down for the first time/Still, I bet you'll never catch me out of her mind."

"That's one of the ones that kills me, some of the lines in that song," Chesterman says, confessing he's actually a little jealous of what Mason accomplishes. "It really seems like he's just not screwing around. And maybe he's not saying anything super important, but it's still very genuine. He's GOOD."

He's also prolific. He's one of the two songwriters in the Lonesome Brothers, whose 1997 debut was on Tar Hut. He's appeared on several compilations, and he was recently asked to play bass on a track for Cliff Eberhardt's new CD, Borders (Red House Records). And Castanets is the Ray Mason Band's second CD on Northampton's Wormco records, his fourth CD of original compositions since 1995.

The band have filled out to a four-piece these days with the addition of Tom Shea on guitar (former Scud Mountain Boys drummer and mandolinist), with Frank Marsh on drums, Stephen Desaulniers on bass, and Mason on vocals and his characteristic Silvertone guitar. Shea's contribution, the great organ work of Jim Weeks, and the use of 16-track tape (as opposed to 8- used on 1998's Old Souls Day) make Castanets the fullest sounding and perhaps the best recording of Mason's career.

It's jam-packed with hooky pop songs that invariably revolve around a short chorus that etch its way into your consciousness. "Mailbox Blue," for instance, came about while Mason was sitting at his kitchen table looking out the window. "I'm surrounded by woods, basically, but the mailbox is down at the end of the road and it, for some reason, popped into my head, `A mailbox being checked six times a week for something interesting.' I think that was the first line that I thought of in the song and I wrote it down on a pad . . . it's all based around that one line."

The CD's title track, which has already been added to playlists at Greenfield station WRSI, is another song that came out of one line: "The ice is breakin' under my feet/Just like castanets." Mason had it in the notebook for two months. "I just kept lookin' at it goin', `Ah yeah, yeah, that line, that's a song right there for sure, but when's it gonna happen?' And then all of a sudden the rest of the words just come out, y'know? You sit at the table with a guitar one day and then boom, the whole thing's done in like 30 minutes."

So that's how he does it, I guess. No mystery, he's just damned good.

Pattalaro calls Mason one of the best songwriters he's ever heard. "Ray is unstoppable. . . . He doesn't even see obstacles as obstacles. He's a constant reminder that the process is the reward. And the songs stand alone." King Radio do a version of Mason's "Step Back Melody" on the tribute. Eric Ambel's solo performance of "It's Heartbreak That Sells" anchors the CD. In characteristic fashion, Mason gives all the credit to Ambel. "When I heard his version, I went, `Wow, that's the way it should go.'"

Other highlights include Cheri Knight (and other former members of the Blood Oranges, with Rani Arbow of Salamander Crossing) doing a beautiful rendition of "Down in the Night," Ass Ponys faithful to the original "Missyouville," and Claudia Malibu's haunting version of "Light." It's a pretty consistent tribute, a testament to the quality of the material.

Angry Johnny and the Killbillies play a characteristically raucous version of Mason's song, "All I Want Is a Little Revenge." When I asked him about the tribute album, even Angry softened a little: "Who wouldn't wanna be on Ray's tribute album, y'know?" That pretty much summed it up, but he racked his brain for a memorable line for this story. "He's a rat-bastard -- umm, I don't know. I don't want to say the standard thing, I think he's a great guy."

All of the musicians we spoke with echoed the same sentiments: Ray Mason is the most optimistic, good-hearted, and genuine person you could imagine. And they all love his songs. Frank Marsh, drummer for the Bamboo Steamers and the Ray Mason Band, says that Mason's music isn't that hard to explain, whether you call it roots rock or rock and roll. "It's a combination of everything, and it's from years of him listening to records since he was a kid in the '50s. . . . He just absorbs it all, y'know? And his music encompasses everything, from the Everlys to the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Neil Young, NRBQ. The list goes on."

Mason considers it a great compliment when people hear their favorite artists in his music. Bob Dylan comes up several times in conversation. "`Like a Rolling Stone', I remember the first time I heard that on the radio. . . . I think he's probably influenced more people than anybody else."

Dylan might've influenced his songwriting, but you don't hear it much in his performance style -- that's all Ray Mason. His vocals are infectious and immediately recognizable, having more in common with Rick Danko of the Band or Neil Young. Both artists are big influences on Mason, but it makes you wonder whether it's one of those chicken-or-the-egg issues: did he seek out people who sang the way he liked to sing, or did he develop his style after hearing all those records throughout his life? Whatever, Mason is very free with his praise of other artists.

"Danko's voice is just incredible, I've opened for him before when he played solo, and he's just amazing to listen to, the voice is just right there," Mason says. "He strains to hit those notes, and that's part of the sound, like he's really reaching for 'em. . . . It's just almost not making it, but it just does make it. And that's a big influence on me, that kind of stuff. And Neil Young obviously, Randy Newman, all those people." He rattles off a list of albums: Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds, and others from the '60s. "You've been luggin' these records around for 30 years and they still knock you out. I can't imagine how many times I've heard those albums. You know exactly what's comin' next. . . . It's kinda like a friend, you're really kinda used to it in a good way. You never get tired of hearing it. That's definitely a test of timelessness there."

Mason's songs have that quality as well.

The Ray Mason Band play on March 19 at the Above Club. Call 752-2211.