Ray Nordstrand: The Best

I am terribly saddened by the passing of Ray Nordstrand, a friend of mine in Chicago who died yesterday morning. Ray was 72 and had been ill for some time.

If you are familiar with Chicago's fine arts station, WFMT-FM, then you are probably familiar with Ray Nordstrand. He was one of the most influential executives in Chicago radio history, whose stewardship of WFMT-FM from its early years made it one of the most respected fine arts stations in the world. WFMT was essentially a mom-and-pop operation in 1953 when Ray, an Evanston native and then a 20-year-old economics student at Northwestern University, joined the station as an announcer.

I met Ray in 1965 while I worked at Big John's, the legendary blues club in Old Town. Each week, I phoned Ray to let him know who was appearing at the club that week so Norm Pellegrini and he would give us a plug on "The Midnight Special." Ray often stopped by to hear Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfied, Muddy Waters, Corky Siegel and Jim Schwall, Howlin' Wolf, Barry Goldberg and Steve Miller, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, and other Chicago blues greats.

After Big John's closed in September 1966, I worked for Earl Pionke at the Earl of Old Town as he launched his folk music policy. Ray, of course, loved the idea of folk music at the Earl. Norm and he always plugged who was performing there, and they often had Earl's performers apppear on "The Midnight Special." Fred and Ed Holstein, Bonnie Koloc, Steve Goodman, and John Prine are just a few of the folk artists whom Ray and Norm helped become known.

Ray also was a good friend of the Old Town School of Folk Music, only a few blocks from the Earl of Old Town. Many of its students performed at the Earl over the years. The School drew students from all over the Chicago area, thanks to Ray's weekly plugs for folk music venues in Chicago.

Ray and I stayed in touch over the years. In the early 1980s, when I was assistant director of the Mayor's Office of Special Events during the Byrne Administration, Ray plugged our Neighborhood Festivals and other activities on "The Midnight Special."

I cannot emphasize enough how helpful those plugs were. They turned both Big John's and The Earl of Old Town from neighborhood bars into night clubs patronized by people from all over the Chicago area. They spread the word about everything we did in the Special Events Office, making our festivals popular all across the city.

Chicagoans will miss you, Ray. Thank you for being such a nice, wonderful person....