Ray Charles On The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1969)
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was a controversial tv show. With its mix of old-school show business and counterculture comedy, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour revolutionized the variety show format for a new generation, and ultimately paved the way for shows such as Saturday Night Live. Ray featured three times in the third season: on 19 January 1969 - performing Doot Doot Dow, I Can't Stop Loving You, You Made Me Love You, all accompanied by the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, and the Oy Vey Blues with Jackie Mason - on 2 February, and on 20 April 1969. The shows, directed by Tim Kiley, were taped at Television City in Hollywood. The Herald Statesman from 12 February 1975 wrote that during one of these shows Ray "[...] received a standing ovation from the audience [...] when he apologized for blowing a line with the excuse, 'The cue cards are blurry'".
DVD: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour: Season 3, Time Life, 16 September 2008, ASIN: B001BGRWRG.
Historic Films archived a reel with three Ray Charles sequences, listed as:
You Made Me Love You
Oy Vey Blues (with Jackie Mason)
I'd Have No Luck At All [should be: If It Wasn't For Bad Luck, BS]
The third tune was part of one of the later shows. In the 2nd or 3d show Ray did a skit with Tommy Smothers where they played street corner musicians. Tommy was a deaf guitarist and Ray played a blind sax player.
The whole show, incl. You Made Me Love You (at 26'00):
"If it's really something good that was not on the record, that's okay, because when I perform I can make the performance of the song better than the record was."
The Genie
Ray Charles at the Apollo (Apr. or maybe Oct. 1959), working on his Wurlitzer. Photo by Alex Harsley.
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About
The Ray Charles Video Museum is a research project, documenting live performances by The Genius.
This blog is above all aMediagraphy. It's also a discography (or, more correctly, a trackography), aggregating all tunes that Ray sang and/or played - including the "canon" of 700 tracks listed on the official Ray Charles website, but also identifying the songs that have never been officially released, and e.g. the recordings of other artists, where Ray backed them on piano. Thirdly, this blog has evolved into a multimedia Chronology (click the years in the panel al the top of this page) of Ray's productive live.
I also try to do some justice to the more than 1,000 great musicians and singers who contributed to Ray's career (1, 2).
The Quotes page lists the wisest, craziest and funniest things that the Genius ever said. If you want to read more about Brother Ray, go here.
The availability of the streaming video and audio content on this blog is constantly under pressure. Some rights owners still think that sharing these videos damages their sales. I'm keeping disfunctional clips as placeholders - to show that the footage exists, and to replace them when new uploads appear on the Web.
The articles in this blog are continuously updated and improved. Your help is more than welcome.
The Bishop seduces the world with his voice
Sweat strangles mute eyes
As insinuations gush out through a hydrant of sorrow
Dreams, a world never seen
Mounded on Africa's anvil, tempered down home
Documented in cries and wails
Screaming to be ignored, crooning to be heard
Throbbing from the gutter
On Saturday night
Silver offering only,
The Right Reverend's Back in Town
Don't it make you feel all right?
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