ABSTRACT
Davies spent a busy November 1987 in New York. He saw through the completion of the master tapes for The Road; he negotiated unsuccessfully with MCA for a full-length video to accompany the live album; and he further developed 80 Days with Des McAnuff and Snoo Wilson. All work halted on November 23, however, when he received news of his mother’s death, coming twelve years after the passing of his father, who died after convincing his oldest son to place a bet on the Wimbledon victory of Arthur Ashe, an underdog who, Fred Davies said, “will slap the bastards in the face for us.”1 Ray flew back to London for his mother’s funeral and delivered the eulogy, which Dave described as “extremely moving” and “insightful.”2 In a letter to his mother in the weeks before her death from cancer, Ray told her that she was the main source of his inspiration and that without her he would never have written anything.
