Mediagraphy - Discography - Trackography - Videography - Gigography - Biography - Chronology

30 July 2010

Ray Charles Ft. In Sacrée Soirée (1989)

Sacrée Soirée was a popular French music tv show presented by Jean-Pierre Foucault. It ran for seven years ("7 ans, 264 émissions, 790 invités, 500 surprises, 511 heures de direct et 2640 chansons interprétées").
Other guests that performed through the years were a.o. Tina Turner, Rod Stewart,  Withney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Eros Ramazzotti, Phil Collins, Zucchero, Paul Young, Paul Anka, Lionel Ritchie, Diana Ross, Arnold Shwarzenegger, Omar Sharif, Claudia Cardinale, Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Ursula Andress, Julio Iglésias, Jean-Claude Vandamme, Joe Cocker, Julien Clerc, Nina Simone, Donna Summer, Elton John, Liza Minelli, Miles Davis, and Madonna.

Ray Charles appeared in the show that aired on 6 September 1989. Unfortunately, this episode hasn't been archived by INA.

Who knows more?

This clip shows how the program always opened:

Ray Charles' Shades, Autobiography And Cassette In Millennium Time Capsule (2000)


Photo from the White House Millennium Council website, captioned:
"Charles, Ray, National Medal of Arts, 1993 
Mr. Charles’ sunglasses, autographed case, autographed photos, book and cassette" 






 The year 2000, nicknamed Y2K, was a crazy year. One of the oddest  projects was Mr. and Mrs. Bill Clinton's Millennium Time Capsule.
Ray Charles' sunglasses, photos of Earth from space, a Twinkie, Corningware, a computer chip, the Bill of Rights, a World War II helmet, a cell phone, GI dog tags, a color photo of the Eagle Nebulae taken by the Hubble space telescope, a recording of the sound of Louis Armstrong's trumpet and a chunk of concrete President Reagan chiseled out of the Berlin Wall, and other objects suggested by American citizens were among the more than 1,300  items sealed in the National Millennium Time Capsule, from 21 January 2000 until 21 January 2100.
The presidential task force didn't mind going into details. Carved out of wood in an American flag motif, the prototype stood 4 feet high, 6 feet long and 2 feet deep. "We developed 25 different designs," said Jim Biber, an architect from a Pentagram design firm, which collaborated with Robert Brunner, an industrial engineer, to create the piece. The actual capsule was made from three metals. The white stripes were in stainless steel, embodying America's industrial past; the red stripes in silicon bronze, symbolizing communication, and the blue stars in titanium, a space-age metal representing America's future.
"I hope this time capsule will stand as a reminder in 100 years of what we valued, what we believed in and what we created and what our children hoped for at this particular point in American history," First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton said.
The first lady, who launched the time capsule project on the last day of 1999, contributed one policy book by President Clinton, a volume on White House entertaining by herself, and Saving America's Treasures, a new book that describes historic preservation efforts across the country, a cause Hillary Rodham Clinton has championed.
On behalf of the president, she submitted a medal given him by soldiers he visited in Kosovo. She said that when examined by another president a century from now she hoped it would stand as "a symbol of our never-ending resolve to fight for peace and freedom."
Conus Archive (ID 197665) has some footage on the capsule. Also see this and this story.

29 July 2010

Ray Charles (Not?) In United We Stand: What More Can I Give (2001)

United We Stand: What More Can I Give was a benefit concert held on October 21, 2001 at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C. The concert was the third in a series of tributes to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. The event was televised in an edited format, by ABC, on 1 November 2001.
Ray is mentioned as a participant in several written sources and even in the description of this video, but I'm not convinced that he really appeared on stage.

Who knows more?

28 July 2010

Ray Charles Interviewed In London & Touring In The UK (1963)

The BBC Archive has a tape of a black-and-white news item titled "Ray Charles Int. In London By A Reporter", broadcast on 12 May 1963. The catalog description is "The blind singer & pianist, Ray Charles, who earns a million dollars a year, is holding an opening concert in London tonight. Later, during the show people clustered round him in the star dressing room."
The shotlist: "Ray Charles out of car into building; SOF: "It's been pretty hectic the last few days, hasn't it Ray, Hamburg & Amsterdam?"; SOF ends: "...these are the songs you can't get away unless you do"; Quick out."

On 8 May Ray performed for a "standing room only" crowd at The Star Club in Hamburg, on 11 May he performed at the Houtrusthallen in The Hague, and the Nieuwe RAI* in Amsterdam (three months later he’d be back in Holland again, now for a concert at the Kurhaus in Scheveningen), on 12 May he made his England debut (booked by Harold Davison) before 3,200 fans at the Astoria Cinema in Finsbury Park, London. On 17 May he was still touring the UK. On 22 May he completed his sensational three night engagement at the Olympia Theatre in Paris.

UK itinerary

12 - 13 May 1963: Flies in at Gatwick Airport on 12th to begin his first British tour; interviewed by BBC at airport. That same night the British debut before 3,200 fans at the Finsbury Park Astoria in London; playing a.o. One Mint Julep, I've Got A Woman, Born To Lose, Careless Love, I Can't Stop Loving You, You Are My Sunshine, Without A Song, My Baby, Hallelujah I Love Her So, Hide Nor Hair, Don't Set Me Free, What'd I Say (a 2nd concert night there on the 13th).

With Raita Johnson, probably during these days in London.
Unidentified occasion and source, (London?) c. 1963.
Backstage with trumpeter Wallace Davenport. Photo by Val Wilmer. 
Hank Crawford. Photo by Val Wilmer.
Margie Hendricks at the Astoria's dressing room. Photo by Val Wilmer.


Photos: Rex Features.

14 May 1963: Hammersmith Odeon, London. Quotes from New Musical Express articles from 10, 17 and 24 May: "Raelets leader Margie Hendrix missed Charles' concert at Hammersmith on Tuesday through illness but was able to rejoin the show the following night". "That wasn't the real Ray Charles," said Ray Charles. "With Maggie ill, no one could sing her part. So I had to leave out a lot of the wilder things..."

Photos by James J. Kringmann of The Raelettes, from this same souvenir brochure.

15 May 1963: New Victoria, London.

16 May 1963: Odeon, Birmingham.

17 May 1963: Leeds. 



18 May 1963: Free Trade Hall, Manchester.


19 May 1963: Hammersmith Odeon, London.

21 May 1963: Concert in London.

Ray Charles On B.A. In Music (1982)

B.A. Robertson is a Scottish musician, actor, composer and songwriter. He presented a short-lived television programme, B.A. in Music, which featured contributions from musician guests. The show made Channel 4's 2000 list of 100 Greatest TV Moments from Hell after Bow Wow Wow singer Annabella Lwin called the programme a 'pretty shit show' and stormed off.
On 6 July 1982 the theme was Black Music. Guests were David Grant Jr, Haysi Fantayzee, Unity, and Ray Charles, who performed I Can't Stop Loving You (or did they show archive footage?). Source here.

The incident with Lwin:

Ray Charles In Women's Prison (1984)

Lorton, Aug. 26, 1966
(from Billboard, 15 Oct.'66).
On 12 April 1984 The Early Show, aired by CBS,  had an item titled Ray Charles Performs At Women's Prison. Source here.

Ray played free prison concerts regularly (as almost all American entertainers do). Billboard reported on another one on 26 July  1966 (see clipping, left).
Frank Sinatra performed on the same stage one year before, with the Count Basie Band, conducted by Quincy Jones:



On 14 March 1970 a Joseph Birstow, recreation supervisor, even announced that "Ray Charles is scheduled to tape an album in Chino in June".

I also found traces of a prison gig in February or March 1976, that I couldn't yet verify.

Ray Charles Interviewed On The Early Show (1992)

On 2 June 1992 CBS' The Early Show interviewed Ray Charles on his music and Pepsi's Uh-huh commercial popularity. Source here
The item also entailed archival footage: from Ray's Pepsi commercials, from the '92 Grammy Award event, from a concert, and from Ray singing America The Beautiful on a tv show. Ray also got a few questions on Georgia On My Mind and Designing Women

Models Stopping And Clapping For Ray Charles In Milan (1997)

On 4 March 1997, the third day of the Milan Fashion Week, Ray Charles performed for thousands of fans at the Fiera di Milano Exhibition Centre, opening the show for Salvatore Ferragamo's new collection.
The AP Archive has a news item, describing shot #6 as "Models stopping and clapping to Ray Charles" and #7 as "Mid shot Ray Charles".

Photos here.

The photo that comes with the story: Ray Charles with Giovanna Gentile Ferragamo, and the clapping models (source: here).

AP news footage in this clip:

Ray Charles Interviewed By Hy Gardner (1966)

 

Hy Gardner (1908 – 1989) was a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, and the host of The Hy Gardner Show. He began interviewing celebrities for tv in 1954, and continued until the mid-1980s.
The first 12 minutes of his interview with Ray Charles covered leading a big band, his musical training and his skills on keyboard instruments, clarinet, trumpet (and even playing "a bit of base violin"), working with, recruiting and educating young musicians, the art of playing boogie woogie, making his first dollar, and the musical ambitions of his own children. I've seen further fragments (kept in the BBC Archive as an undated 8m30s reel titled Hy Gardner interviews blues man Ray Charles) covering Ray's drug addiction, the effect of drink & drugs on performing, the influence of entertainers on young people, censorship, his record sales & alternative careers, and his privacy. The interview was taped in Miami (this may have coincided with a dinner concert at the Key Auditorium on October 8, 1966).
Stock footage agency ThoughtEquity shows separate parts of this interview. From some sequences it becomes clear that the interview must have been shot in 1966 (not 1960, as the agency says).

Ray Charles Interviewed On Hardtalk (2001)

Hardtalk is the "hard-hitting flagship news programme" of BBC World News and the BBC News channel. It first aired on 31 March 1997. Ray was interviewed by Irma Kurtz in 2001. She doesn't miss a chiché (listen how she pronounces I've Got A Woman), and Ray happily complies. The 24 minute programme was first broadcast on 27 July of that year.
In the end (after weakly protesting that "it's 2 o'clock in the morning") he yodels. You can watch it here, in Real Audio.

Ray Charles Performs In Zurich (2001)


The AP television archive has an entry, specifying that "US blues legend Ray Charles performs in Zurich, Switzerland, Nov. 19, 2001".

I guess what they are actually describing here is not tv footage, but the photo at the left, from the AP image archive.


27 July 2010

Ray Charles In Absolutely Ahmet (1997)

This video from 1997 is always described as "A tribute to Ahmet Ertegun that Mick Jagger, Cher, Henry Kissinger, Ray Charles and others put together for Atlantic Record's 50th Anniversary".
Who knows the real story behind it: who exactly initiated it, who produced it, how and when was it presented to Ahmet, etc.?

26 July 2010

Ray Charles Interviewed By Charles Rose (1987)

The archive of the Australian tv station Channel 9 has databased a 7m45s reel, showing how "Charles Rose interviews Ray Charles about his career and his future. Shots of him performing." The air date was 7 January 1987.
I suppose the interviewer is the same as the American journalist Charlie Rose. If so, it must have aired earlier in the U.S. Source here. For Rose also see this.

Who knows more?

Ray Charles Live At The Leeuwin Winery (1988)

On or just before either 6 February or 7 March 1988 Ray Charles performed at the Leeuwin Estate, in the  Margeret River region (West Australia). This source describes a 67-minute video of the concert. Listening to the voice over at the end of the tape, it was simulcast on ABC Classic FM and ABC-TV in a series titled Sunday Stereo Special. Ray played with The West Australian Symphony Orchestra. The story goes that the winery first "[...] tried to get the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, couldn't and asked blind singer and pianist Ray Charles instead".

The show was directed by Stephen Burstow. Ray brought his own rhythm section: Kenny Carr on guitar, Joe Harris on bass guitar and Paul Kreibich on drums. The orchestra was conducted by Dobbs Franks.

Paul remembers how "A Kookaburra bird starting laughing during a ballad and Ray stopped the orch[estra, and  m]ade them try to catch the bird out of the tree!" This incident, unfortunately, did not make it to the TV program, but seems to haven been part of a documentary item (see below).

I've seen the complete video of the show (coming to me in fragments), which started with a rather cool scene where you see Ray arriving at the estate by helicopter. The concert is cross-edited with interview sequences taken from the Omnibus documentary from 1986. The only, but exquisite, surprise on the track list was a soaring rendition of That Lucky Old Sun, but the Australian audience also loudly appreciated the bawdy version of #9:
  1. They Can't Take That Away From Me
  2. If You Go Away
  3. It Hurts To Be In Love
  4. Georgia On My Mind
  5. Eleanor Rigby
  6. It Ain't Easy Being Green
  7. Take These Chains From My Heart
  8. That Lucky Old Sun
  9. Lay Around And Love On You (All I Wanna Do Is --)
  10. For Mamma
  11. All I Ever Need Is You
  12. Yesterday
  13. Outro
The Channel 9 archive has shelved a 3 minute news item dated 7 March  ("Reece Whitby reports"), showing how Ray "[...] is given a huge reception by the wine sipping guests". He "[...] held 7,000 guests enthralled with his music". Source here. And there's a 2 minute item dated 6 February 1988 (shotlist: Night: stage, crowd, wine in wheelbarrow, kookaburra in a tree, Charles singing). I have a hunch that the second tape's date should be 6 March (source here).

Yesterday:

Complete:

Ray Charles Interviewed For Australian TV (1989)

On 15 October 1989 an Australian TV station aired a 14m38s interview titled Ray Charles. Reporter was Jeff McMullen. According to the program's documentation, "They call him a genius, but Ray Charles prefers to think of himself simply as a musician who does a lot of things well. That aside, his talent is unique; his music, unmistakable - the kind that demands to be heard, generation after generation. Ray has just turned 59 and he invited Jeff McMullen to his birthday party in Los Angeles. He tells McMullen about the man who was the greatest influence on his career - not someone famous like Duke Ellington, but a boogie-playing neighbor from his early childhood. Ray also describes vividly the last thing he remembers seeing before glaucoma claimed his sight - the day his brother drowned. As Ray says, 'Everything was pretty much downhill from there'."

Shotlist:
  • Ray Charles performing
  • Ray backstage
  • Ray disembarking plane
  • At home relaxing
  • Having a shave
  • In recording studio
  • On the set of TV series Who's The Boss [cf. this]
  • At his 59th birthday celebration with deaf actress Marlee Matlin
  • Stills of Ray performing.
Source here.

Ray Charles Receives National Medal Of The Arts From Bill Clinton (1993)

On 7 October 1993 Bill Clinton honored the arts community in a White House ceremony recognizing eighteen distinguished Americans for their contributions to the arts and humanities.

Reuters Television keeps a 13m12s tape (ID Ref: 604300544; source here), showing the president "[s]haring a platform on the South Lawn with singer Ray Charles, bandleader Cab Calloway and playwright Arthur Miller". Other honorees were Billy Wilder; William Styron; Paul Folklorist; Bess Lomax Hawes; Stanley Kunitz; Walter and Leonore Annenberg; and Robert Rauschenberg. After honoring Cab Calloway, Clinton walked back to podium and presented Ray with the medal. After Charles sat  down, Clinton said:
Cab Caloway, Ray Charles,
Bess Lomax Hawes.
"Literally for decades Ray Charles has been one of America's favourite singers. From his roots in Georgia he became one of the first great truly American singers, one of the first to combine the dynamic energy of gospel music with rhythm and blues. His songs are indelibly etched in the hearts of millions of Americans. I can tell you that it's a particular honor for me to give him this award today because I suppose no singer every had a bigger impact on my musical life than Ray Charles. I still remember over there in Constitution Hall a concert I attended on June 24th, 1967. I was notable for being one of the few members of my race in the audience. Ray Charles electrified that crowd so much that that night I literally could not go to sleep until 5 o'clock in the morning; I went out and ran three miles to get the energy out. And I still remember to this day the date of the concert. That is testament to the enduring impact of this phenomenal American Original."

Women Running After Ray Charles' Car In Tbilisi, Georgia (1996)

Photo (from website of event owners): Ray in Tbilisi.
Is he carrying his braille Playboy there?
Reuters Television has shelved two tapes with news items produced on 17 October 1996, when Ray Charles arrived in Tbilisi, in "the other Georgia", where he headlined the Coca-Cola Tbilisi Jazz Festival, giving a concert at the State Concert Hall (a.k.a. the State Philharmonic Complex), accompanied by the Georgian Philharmic Orchestra.
According to Reuters, "Tickets went for over 200 Lari (150 U.S. dollars) despite average salaries of less than 10 U.S. dollars a month throughout the mountainous republic of five million". Ray "[...] had been urged to visit Georgia by Georgian-American émigrés and American friends of the former Soviet republic."
Ray got a true rock star's - if not a state man's - reception. The camera crew saw him "[...] descending aircraft steps / being greeted by women giving him flowers", and then observed "Charles' motorcade pulling away from airport" and "Women running after car".
With president  Shevardnadze. 
The next shots not only showed "Charles drinking wine from traditional Georgian cup", but soon after also "Charles leaving elevator, being greeted by Eduard Shevardnadze", and then being "seated with American ambassador to Georgia, [...] opposite Shevardnadze and Georgian government delegation".
The next sequence demonstrated "Thousands of fans crammed into the State Philharmonic Complex in the Georgian capital Tbilisi to see a special performance from Ray Charles". To top it all off, "Among other numbers, he sang his trademark Rainy Night In Georgia [sic!] ballad to the delight of the crowd." So of course, in the end we see the "audience including Shevardnadze applauding" before it all ends with "Charles leaving".
You can watch extensive AP news footage here.*

In 2007 the yearly jazz festival moved from Tbilisi to the Black Sea resort of Batumi, and the name was changed to Coca-Cola Black Sea Jazz Festival. In 2009 the event owners had problems finding new sponsors. In an interview marketing manager Kakha Kandelaki reflected on Ray's legendary visit: "Thousands of people welcomed him on the runway when he arrived. The managers of the singer were confused. Ray was lucky not to see it all. We never believed that he would actually extend his tour to Tbilisi until we saw him coming out of the plane. [...] It was not considered a great idea to invite James Brown or Ray Charles to Georgia taking into account the reality that the vast majority of the Georgian public preferred listening to Russian pop singers Leonid Agutin and Oleg Gazmanov instead. From the very beginning our customers looked at our festivals sceptically. They thought it impossible for such festivals to take place in Tbilisi. Others just assumed that the invited singers must have been unpopular in their own countries already, thus visiting such an out-of-the-way spot to perform. However as time passed the number of viewers started increasing. We managed to gain a certain segment of the population’s trust and loyalty. [...]. The world-famous stars who visited our country introduced Georgia, in turn, to the world. We have created a fertile background of our country by our work. Currently there is no problem in inviting any music maestro to our country. No one asks who the president of your country is when they hear who has already visited it. Nowadays, artists are not even waiting for our invitation, rather they ask in advance if we would like to invite them to participate in jazz festival tours.

Source materials are here and here. One more amateur photo with Ray is here.

The CNN Evening News, anchored by Judy Woodruff,  for Friday, October 18, 1996 featured Ray Charles' sold-out "performance in the Republic of Georgia"; scenes from the concert were shown.

* This footage is obviously identical to the AP news video:


Ray Charles At Chicago Blues Festival (1998)

Fox News on 4 June 1998, in a 1m50s item, covered the Chicago Blues Festival at Grant Park, showing "Clips of fans at outdoor concert; various shots of Ray Charles arriving on stage and playing electric piano."  Source here.
The theme of this concert was The Golden Anniversary of Ray Charles. As special guests he brought Hank Crawford, David Fathead Newman, Leroy Cooper, Phil Guilbeau, Marcus Belgrave, and Mable John on stage.





Ray Charles Performs At Award Event For Bland & Ertegun (1998)

This pic may be of a later date.
Reuters Television has archived a show biz item from 9 November 1998, covering how Bobby Blue Bland and Ahmet Ertegun received their Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Blues Foundation, in the House Of Blues in LA.
(Coll. Joël Dufour).
Ruth Brown, Quincy Jones And Ray Charles were among those to pay to tribute to Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun. Bobby Bland, Ruth Brown, Boz Skaggs, Stephen Stills and Ray Charles performed live. There was also a B/W montage of Ahmet Ertegun and Ray Charles:
A.E.: We started Atlantic Records with 10,000. And it cost three thousand dollars to buy Ray Charles' contract and I tried to make Ray Charles make records like we were making hits with The Clovers, but that didn't work with Ray Charles. What we told him was not as good as what would happen if we didn't fuck around with him and let him do what he wanted to do, because he got his shit together when he got his own band... 
R.C.: We'd be sitting in the studio playing around and he said to me, Hey listen, what if I put down some words and see what you can do with them. So I said, Alright Ahmet, I'll do that. And this is what he put down and this is what I did with it. [Starts to play Mess Around].
Source here. Another interesting story on the event by the LA Times is here.

Who knows more?

25 July 2010

Ray Charles At New Orleans Jazz Festival (1999)

On 23 April 1999 Ray Charles headlined the New Orleans Jazz Festival. Other acts were Willie Nelson, Cassandra Wilson, Kirk Franklin, Hugh Masakela, Bobby Blue Bland and the Isley Brothers. Local acts like Fats Domino, the Neville Brothers, Irma Thomas, Pete Fountain, Dr. John, and Allen Toussaint "made the event seem like a family affair".
Reuters produced a 2m50s showbiz news clip (ID 904240039; source here). In the 13th sequence they showed "Singer Ray Charles On Stage". For a photo of Ray's performance, watch this page.

I've found a reference to a bootleg, where the setlist is specified as [with obvious corrections, BS]:
  1. Untitled instrumental (?)*
  2. Riding Thumb
  3. Busted
  4. Georgia On My Mind
  5. Then We'll Be Home (Sadies Tune)
  6. Just For A Thrill**
  7. You Made Me Love You**
  8. Yours**
  9. Stranger In My Own Hometown**
  10. A Song For You***
  11. Chain Of Fools
  12. I Can't Stop Loving You
  13. I Believe To My Soul
  14. What'd I Say
* May have been usual RC intro with walk-on tune. **The source for this bootleg info presented tracks #6 - 9 as a medley (which is impossible). Conjecture in title of #8: Just Yours > Yours. ***The Raelette walk-on would have been after A Song For You.

Ray Charles Celebrates His 70th Birthday In The House Of Blues (2000)

Clipping: from People Magazine.

Reuters Television keeps a 5m52s reel of their celeb news coverage of Ray Charles' 70th birthday celebration, on 2 October 2000 (ID 010020034; source here; watch this partial clip), in the House Of Blues in Los Angeles. At the occasion he received the Blues Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Reuters wrote:
"Serenaded by the likes of Willie Nelson, Billy Preston and Ashford & Simpson, soul icon Ray Charles has belatedly celebrated his 70th birthday recently with a big dose of the blues.
Charles was the guest of honor in West Hollywood at an annual fund-raising dinner thrown by the Blues Foundation, a non-profit group that aims to promote and preserve blues music around the world.
Producer-composer Quincy Jones [...] showered the musician with praise as he handed him a lifetime achievement award. "Ray is a nation. I mean you talk about everybody else and you talk about Ray Charles, that's the way I feel about it. He invented it."
"I think he likes me," Charles said in reply. "The thing he said to you is very true."
Billy Preston led the crowd in a chant of "Happy Birthday" and performed "You Are So Beautiful" as Charles was presented with a large German chocolate birthday cake. Singer-songwriters Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson sang several tunes, including Let's Go Get Stoned, which Charles took to No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1966, the duo's first big hit. Nelson praised "my old chess partner" as he sang Georgia On My Mind [...]. Jazz vocalist Diane Schuur [...] also performed. [...]. Charles, whose actual birthday was Sept. 23, did not perform. He sat at a long table next to Jones, grinning widely and occasionally getting up to groove to the music. [...]."
RAY CHARLES
Also read this. More photos here.

Ray Charles At Newport (2001)

Reuters archive keeps a 7m50s showbiz reel titled Music Lovers Gather For The Annual Newport Jazz Festival, dated 10 August 2001 (ID 108100034; source here). "A soaked audience was treated to the sounds of Natalie Cole, Ray Charles, Dave Brubeck- and a special performance by comedian Bill Cosby. [...]. The biggest musical name at the festival, Ray Charles, had the audience dancing in puddles of rain at Fort Adams State Park late Sunday afternoon (August 13)."
In the 15th sequence the clip shows "Ray Charles performing with band" for a little less than a minute.

Ray Charles Interviewed Over Satellite On The Australian Today Show (2002)

In February 2002 Ray Charles was a guest on the Australian Channel 9 morning tv program Today Show (ID 20020211001 and 20020212012; sources here and here). The interview, done over sattelite, was split and aired over 2 days, the 11th and the 12th.

Part 1 (11 May):
Host/interviewer (IV): Well, today a real treat as we are joined via satellite from Los Angeles by one of the music world's true greats. He's won 12 Grammys and countless other awards. He had his first hit 44 years ago. And he's still going strong. In fact he's about to embark on his 135th overseas tour which will see him play at the Wyndham Estate in the Hunter Valley on Saturday. I'm talking about Ray Charles and it is a great pleasure to thank you for joining, us sir. How are you doing?
R.C.: I'm doing quite well. and thank you very much. I love that. What part of it did you love the most? You know when you give all those nice little accolades, you know, about the Grammys and about my tours overseas, I think that's really nice. I'm surprised you knew all of that.
IV: It is an incredible track record that you've had and an amazing career. At 70-something years of age most people have opted for a lazy and happy retirement. What is it that keeps you going, sir?
R.C.: Well, you know, actually you say 70-something. It's actually 71 years, and what keeps me going is the music. I mean, you know, this music is my life just like breathing, you know what I mean? You've got to breathe, I have to play music. You know, it's my everything. It's number one in my life. So you know, it's something I can't retire from. When I stop, it will be because the good Lord has told me my numbers [are] up.
IV: Do you remember when you started singing and playing the piano? Can you remember what it was that hooked you in in the first place?
R.C.: Well it was just something when I was three years old, which is as far back as I can remember, I just loved music and I was always trying to sing - even when I was that age. If I heard something I was always trying to sing. And of course this elderly gentleman who was [...] living next door, [...] he was a boogie woogie pianist, and whenever I would hear him start to play that piano, I don't care what I was doing - if I was playing with some other youngsters or something - I would immediately stop and go and sit and listen to him play that piano. So you know, music is just a part of me. So I'm going to always do it.
IV: You were blind by the age of seven. Those of us with eyesight can't imagine what you must have gone through and what that must feel like. Was music somehow therapy to help you deal with that trauma do you think?
R.C.: Oh that's a great question, sir. I'm not so sure because the reason - I don't think that's necessarily so because I was - I loved music as I say from the time I was three years old, so I think going blind or even if I didn't go blind I don't think it would have had anything to do with it. Music was just - was in me... I was just - I mean, if there's such a word as destined..., I guess it was just something that was totally within my whole body, my whole soul, my whole heart, everything. So I don't think blindness really had anything to do with it. I was going to play music regardless.
[Other arms reach out to me / Other eyes smile tenderly...].
IV: You've had so many great songs over the years. Songs like... Georgia, I guess, is the classic example which, I guess, is your signature tune. Do you ever get sick of playing the song or of having people screaming out for it every time you walk anywhere near a piano?
R.C.: What's great about what I do is I don't have to sing Georgia the same way every night. I can sing it whatever way I feel. That's the difference between when you're doing modern music as opposed to, say, classical music, where you've got to play exactly what's on the paper the way that it is. You can't deviate. But when you're playing jazz or you're playing, you know, what they call popular music, you can, you know, you can sing the song the way you feel it that night. And since we don't feel the same way every day that means each night I sing it, but it's always different.
IV: The great Ray Charles and Let The Good Times Roll.
[Yeah everybody Lets have some fun / You only live the once and when you're dead you're done / So let the good times roll / I say let the good times roll / Yeah you gotta let the good times roll].
IV: So there you go - the great Ray Charles who is performing at the Myer Music Bowl on Friday the 22nd, with special guest Renée Geyer and the Australian Pops Orchestra, and Saturday 23 at the Wyndham Estate Winery in the Hunter Valley. And tomorrow morning the rest of that exclusive interview.

Part II (12 May):
[Introduced by INXS video clip; cf. this.]
IV: Ladies and gentleman, please welcome, this is going to be great, INXS and special guest, Ray Charles - folks!
[Tears, tears, tears / falling from my eyes / you have to be in love / to know the reason why].
R.C.: I think for myself just to try to make the best music you can make. Forget about, you know - I don't try to say, Well, is this going to be like Georgia, or is this going to be like I Can't Stop Loving You, or is this going to be like What I Say*, or is this going to be like Born To Lose? I don't do that because that's not what it's about. What I want to do is whatever I'm doing, I want to make that the best I can make it.
[You think it's easy / 'cause you don't know the feeling / Make it up, make it up / Lock it in your door / I have a fever like a man has a passion / If you have the time I'll show you how to turn it on].
R.C.: So, when I pick a song, it's something that I genuinely love myself, and I'm going to put my total self into it. When you're not playing music, I gather you play a pretty good game of chess? Is that right? You heard about me, huh? Yeah. I must say I love chess, and the reason I love it is because, you know, it's a little different from when you're playing with cards. If you don't get the right card, I don't care how good you are, chances are you're going to lose. But with chess everybody starts with exactly the same identical thing. So it's just a case of you out-thinking me or I'm out-thinking you, or one of us make a mistake. I love that.
IV: You learned to play music by reading Braille. And I gather that the Ray Charles Foundation is your way of giving back to other people who have some special needs. Tell me about the work of the foundation, sir?
R.C.: What my foundation does, we deal with hearing. The reason for that, a lot of people they would think I would deal with blindness, but I deal with hearing because I realised how important it is, especially to me, because, I mean my hearing is the last resort for me. I cannot be Helen Keller. And we take these kids and we put some cochlear implants into their ear and next thing, you know, they can hear. When you start out at, say, three years old and he couldn't hear nothing in his life and by the time he's five, he's talking - you don't know how proud that makes me feel.
[Although your arms are holding me tight / The sadness you feel girl don't seem right].
IV: Ray Charles, you are a legend and an inspiration. Thank you for your time this morning, sir. We wish you safe travel to Australia and look forward to see you playing at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne. I think the last time you were in Melbourne you worked at Crown. John Farnham got up. You remember that? R.C.: Yes, sir, he sure did. Got up and said, Do a little singing right along with me. It was a great night. We look forward to the Myer Music Bowl, and, of course, the Wyndham Estate in the Hunter Valley.
IV: Ray Charles, thank you very much, sir.
R.C.: Thank you, my friend, and I hope to see you when we get there.

Ray Charles Promoting 135th World Tour (2002)

On 10 May 2002 Reuters and Warner Bros Records released a video press kit (ID 205100047; source here), titled Jazz And Blues Legend Ray Charles Embarks On 135th World Tour. It also promoted his album Thanks For Bringing Love Around Again.
The footage was a mixture of a few shots of Ray's performance at the Newport Jazz Festival on 12 or 13 August 2001, a video of Ray singing (at Newport 2001?) A Song For You, the video clip of I'll Be Good To You, and an interview with Ray, done in Los Angeles on 17 April 2002. The transcription of the interview parts is:
The public can't come to you, you've got to go to the public I mean that's the way it is. I have to go to Chicago, I got to go to New York, I got to go to Miami, I got to go wherever. That's where the people are and they want to see me or want to hear me so I must go to them, so it makes it very, very nice. Because, you know, for me I can walk out onto the stage, I haven't sung one note, nothing, and the people stand up. I mean isn't that marvelous, I find that incredible. People know when I walk out, they already know they are to get all of me so they stand up to let me know they're with me before I even start to sing and you've got to love that. When people say to me, 'Oh Ray you got a standing ovation, I don't have the nerve to say yeah man, but that's every night.'
I'm never really satisfied but you see I know that that's just because I'm very critical of myself. I can always think I could have done this, I should have done that. You know when you hear later on, you think I wish I has, or I wish I had, but there comes a point where you have say am I happy right now, at this moment and if you say yeah, then you go home and you sleep.
Music has always been like my breathing, how do you do without breathing, you can't do without breathing, I can't do without music. It's truly my life, it's all I got, it is the one thing I know when everything else fails me I can count on music I know that cos I've been through it.
I don't know anything to retire to, you understand what I mean. I'm doing what I love doing and as long as I have my health and my strength I'm going to do that until the good Lord tells me you can come out to pasture now, you've been a good horse and he takes me away. But until then I'm of the Duke Ellington variety, I'm going to do music till I die, It aint no retiring.
I'm not as excited as I would like to be, in other words when I was coming up you had people in the business who were truly creative to start with. Had their own identity, you knew exactly who they were and where they were coming from and they had their own mark. You take a person like Nat Cole sang two notes and you knew it was Nat Cole, Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald or Barbara Streisand . Today and I don't blame the kids cause I know what record companies do to kids nowadays, they don't want them to be original they want them to sound like whoever had the last hit whatever that was. So instead of being original, it's so much imitating or copying.

Ray Charles Interviewed & On Stage (2003)

Australian tv station Channel 9 had archived a clip (ID CNINE20030122001; source here). It shows:
Ray Charles b[r]ought out by man in tuxedo, Ray slapping thigh in time to music looking elated, Ray standing in front to stage, slapping thighs and knocking knees, arms out stretched and hugs himself, motions to band to stop and start tune, Ray sits down in front of piano and adjusts microphone, Ray starts singing and playing piano, Ray adjusts microphone again, zoom in CU Ray singing, Ray IV in room in front of piano, WS Ray on stage again playing piano, zoom in Ray at piano, CU ray singing into microphone, pan over to jazz band standing playing saxaphones and trumpets, pan back over to Ray and bass player and zoom out, zoom in on Ray, Ray IV in room, CU Ray on stage singing at piano, Ray finishes song and pans out to WS of stage, Ray IV in room, BW Ray Charles video clip, Ray IV in room, colour Ray Charles video clip, Ray IV in room, BW Ray Charles video clip.
This footage may be related to Ray's last concert in Australia.

Ray Charles Profiled (2003)

On 4 May 2003 CBS aired a documentary, aptly titled Ray Charles, made by Bill Whitaker. 
This CBS broadcast can be identified with an item that was part of CBS Sunday Morning (a.k.a. CBS News Sunday Morning; format described here). It went along with an introduction on the programme's webpage, written by Rome Neal, with a storyline almost parallel to the script quoted above.
The title of this introduction - Ray Charles: Music Is His Life - was the full title of the documentary. The air date was 4 May 2003. A few sequences were used in this CBS News item, on Ray's death, on 10 June 2004.

Channel 9 in Australia broadcast the documentary on 18 May 2003, and has shelved it (ID 20030517022; source here). Interestingly, they also share the original shotlist and script on their archive website. The news angle is that a bio pic on Ray's life (later to be titled Ray) has gone into production. The program was obviously compiled from archive film and photo footage and newly shot interviews. Also read this.

Shotlist:
  • Ray Charles playing piano and singing and playing saxophone
  • Ray Charles IV & RV2S
  • Ray on stage playing and performing
  • Ray IV again & RV2S
  • Old CLIP Ray on stage playing and singing
  • Ray IV again
  • BW CLIP playing and singing and The Raylettes
  • PHOTO
  • Ray IV again
  • Ray performing on stage with backing singers
  • Record and sheet music What'd I Say
  • Ray performing & VO singing
  • Early PHOTO
  • Ray IV again
  • FX I Can't Stop Loving You & PHOTOS
  • Ray singing for Willie Nelson's 70th
  • Willie Nelson IV
  • Ray singing and playing electronic keyboard
  • Elton John IV
  • Ray singing cont.
  • Ray IV again & RV2S nod
  • Early PHOTOs
  • Ray IV again & RV2S
  • Ray singing playing piano
  • Ray IV again & RV2S
  • Recording studio control panel and Ray operating machine
  • BW CLIP railway workers
  • Negroes dancing; CLIP movie on Ray Charles
  • Jamie Foxx IV
  • Ray playing piano singing
  • RQ & Ray IV again
  • Singing on stage
Script:
V.O.: There's no mistaking the voice of Ray Charles. And no stopping him, either. After a childhood of poverty, blindness at the age of 6, and a career that's embraced jazz and country, blues and rock 'n' roll, at the age of 72 he still shows no sign of tiring ... or retiring. Bill Whitaker reports.
[You're my first love you're my last / You're my future you're my past].
V.O.: Ray Charles just can't stop. At 72, he's still making music that grabs the soul.
[All I ever need is you].
R.C.: It really stimulates me. It puts the voltage into me to make me go and that's why when I go out on stage, I give them all of me, not part of me, but everything I got, I give it to them.
[Pause for sax]. 
V.O.: Ray Charles can't stop the music, because music, he says, is his life.
R.C.: Ever since I was 3 years old, music has always fascinated me. It's like your life blood, huh? Exactly - Lord, I love that, because that's what it is. That's precisely what it is. You can't live without it, huh? No. No. Music is number one in my life - that's it.
V.O.: Cheering all kinds of music. In fact, in his 57 years as an entertainer, he's played just about every American genre - jazz and country, rock-and-roll, ballads and blues. He doesn't discriminate.
R.C.: There's only two kinds of music as far as I'm concerned. Good and bad - that's it. You know, I sincerely believe in that. I just sit there and get into the groove of what the music is dictating. I follow where the music leads me.
V.O.: And it's taken him and us on a fantastic journey - through a revolution in American popular music.
[The sun died with my love / When you left me blue].
V.O.: It took him a while to find his voice. He started off imitating crooner Nat King Cole.
R.C.: I was very frightened to be myself because I could get jobs sounding like Nat Cole. But I told myself, You got to do it. You have to do it, because don't nobody know your name.
[Tell me what I say / Tell me what I say, now / Oh, what'd I say / Tell me what I say tell me what I say].
V.O.: And when he found his style with band and back-up singers The Raylettes, it was explosive and controversial. Ray Charles mixed Saturday night and Sunday morning in a way not heard before.
IV: You were criticised early on for mixing the sacred and the profane.
R.C.: Yeah - the devil's music with God's music. That's the way they used to put it to me. I got a lot of criticism, but what the people didn't realise was all I was doing was being myself.
[Pause for vocal jamming]. 
V.O.: He created a sound so original, so timeless, that the Library of Congress recently picked What'd I Say as one of the most significant American recordings and Ray Charles as one of the most influential American artists.
R.C.: I'm a little embarrassed to say this but I've had 'hits' in just about every branch of music.
V.O.: He was already a big R & B star when he decided to make a country album. His record label producers tried to talk him out of it.
R.C.: My attitude was, Well, I probably may lose a few fans, but if I work this right, I think I'll gain more fans then I lose.
[Choir sings: I can't stop loving you].
V.O.: And he did.
[I've made up my mind]. 
V.O.: I Can't Stop Loving You hit number one on the country, R & B and pop charts in 1962, and Ray Charles was the most popular singer in the nation.
[I love you in a place].
V.O.: Ray Charles still embraces country music, and country music embraces Ray Charles. He just sang at his good friend Willie Nelson's 70th birthday bash. He did a country music album that was so good, that it brought that kind of music to so many different people all over the world that really, country music took a quantum leap right after that, thanks to Ray Charles.
[What I do, when lightning strikes me].
V.O.: 'Thanks to Ray Charles' - you hear that a lot from musicians. Sir Elton John says Ray Charles's uninhibited soul and unrivalled versatility set many creative spirits free.
E.J.: He was one of the catalysts for me of music. I mean, as a piano player and as a singer, I hear him in so many people. They don't come much better than him.
[What I gotta do to be heard].
V.O.: But it didn't come easy. What have been some of the hard parts?
IV: What's been the hardest for you?
R.C.: Well, the hard parts in my life, when you start out with zero, you know what it is to be poor. You know what it is to be hungry. My brother drowned in front of my eyes when I was about four years old - five, something like that. And then I lost my mum when I was 15, which is tragic. I was in the world alone, you know. And then I fooled around with drugs for a while.
[Hit the road Jack and don't you come back / No more, no more, no more, no more / Hit the road Jack]. 
V.O.: He hit the road at that young age, crossing the country playing clubs and concerts. He became a notorious womanizer and substance abuser. He had a heroin habit for years.
R.C.: But I was lucky enough to tell myself one day, You got to stop. You know, this is fine. I've been there and done that. OK, so you did it, but it ain't good for you. You need to let it go. And I did exactly that.
V.O.: But he has no regrets.
R.C.: Everything that I look at that happened to me there was a negative, I learned something from it. I got something out of it, you know. It helped me be able to do other things better.
[It's not that easy being green]. 
V.O.: You may have noticed absent from his list of hardships - his blindness.
R.C.: I look at blindness like an inconvenience. You know how something is inconvenient? I can do 99 - well, maybe I'm stretching it, OK, I'll say 98 - I can do 98% of everything I want to do in my life. The only thing, when I look at myself, that I really can't do is drive a car.
V.O.: He lost his sight at age six to glaucoma. His mother taught him not to feel sorry for himself, but to do for himself.
[Brief pause for guitar].
R.C.: A lot of people when they watch me, they swear that I have to be able to see some, because I do too many things that normally blind people can't do. All the mixes that you hear for my records, I do. So if you hear a record you don't like the mix, you can blame me. (Laughs).
Georgia, Georgia / The whole day through].
V.O.: From growing up poor in the South to having his own recording company in Los Angeles, he's had experiences enough... [clapper board claps] ...well, enough to make a movie. The story of his life is in production now. [Brief pause]. 
[Jamie Foxx plays Ray Charles.].
J.F.: He's ageless. He's ageless, because we as people, when we got up in the morning we look in the mirror and there's been a few years has gone by. And we say, Oh, my face, I've got a wrinkle, I got this. He's never done that.
[Brief pause].
V.O.: After 57 years, you'd think he'd earned the right to slow down, but he's still recording, still touring, still making music.
IV: Can you ever see yourself retiring from music?
R.C.: And do what? Sit back and rest on your laurels and take your money and live in luxury. Gee, man, give me a break. You think I can let my life go in front of my face like that? I can't do that. No, you know, music is what I love. Music is my life. I'm going to continue to do what I do, because I love what I do.
[Oh, what you trying to do to me].
V.O.: Ray Charles just can't stop.
[I'm going to need you baby / All I ever needed - you].

Ray Charles Ft. In Blowin' The Blues Away Concert At The Apollo (2003)

The U.S. Congress declared 2003 as The Year of the Blues, and in celebration of that Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Lou Donaldson, B.B. King, Audra McDonald, Willie Nelson, Carrie Smith, and The Wynton Marsalis Septet gathered together at New York City's Apollo Theater for Blowin' The Blues Away, a part of Jazz at Lincoln Center's second annual spring gala.
The concert was conceived by Wynton Marsalis as a kind of staged documentary on the history and the role of the blues as an integral part of American life and culture (Geoffrey Ward wrote the script). The event was hosted by Laurence Fishburne.
A newly commissioned work by Wynton Marsalis featuring all of the night's performers premiered. The concert was followed by a dinner held in a tented space behind the theatre. Proceeds from the concert benefited the educational programs produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center.
A Clapton fan site aggregated 3 reviews.

Kelefa Sanneh (New York Times, 5 June 2003) wrote:
[…] On Monday night the Apollo Theater held a concert that took its shape from the most vibrant expression of the blues today: the television documentary.
The concert […] succeeded, thanks in large part to the star performer, Laurence Fishburne, whose smooth, rich voice evoked the great voice-over narrators of old. If you sat back in your seat and closed your eyes, it was easy to feel as if you'd been transported . . . to your own sofa, in front of the television set.
The soundtrack was supplied by the Wynton Marsalis Septet, which nimbly brought to life blues and blues-inflected pieces from throughout the century. […].
Out came Eric Clapton, strapping on an acoustic guitar for a charming, spindly version of Louis Armstrong's I'm Not Rough, and no one laughed when he moaned, 'It takes a brown-skinned woman to satisfy my mind.' (When Mr. Clapton was done, Mr. Fishburne assured the audience that the blues, they belong to everyone).
Out came B.B King, who did more mugging than playing, and who didn't seem totally comfortable collaborating with Mr. Marsalis's jazz band; he seemed a bit more comfortable when Mr. Marsalis brought out Mr. Clapton for the inevitable duet.
Out came Ray Charles, who contributed the night's most bizarre solo, bending notes on a keyboard to imitate a guitar; Mr. Marsalis could only chuckle and shake his head.
And out came Willie Nelson, clutching his battered guitar, mumbling his way through a marvelously casual version of Night Life.
[…] In deference, perhaps, to the old tradition of public television, there were no commercials, although halfway through, Mr. Fishburne preached a blustery blues sermon (written by Stanley Crouch) that might have been the perfect time for a bathroom break.
The overall effect was entertaining but also dizzying; with so many performers squeezed into a little over an hour, the concert often felt like one long montage. […]
A Reuters critic wrote:
All 14 hours of the upcoming PBS miniseries The Blues may not do half as good a job of illustrating the history of the musical form as this stunning benefit concert at the historic Apollo Theater for Jazz at Lincoln Center.
[…] Blowin' the Blues Away was that rare black-tie musical evening in which every aspect came together beautifully. […].
Clapton, playing acoustic guitar, paid homage to his original inspirations with heartfelt renditions of I'm Not Rough (playing the Lonnie Johnson part from the original Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives recording) and Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out.
Nelson did a version of Night Life featuring a nicely jazzed-up arrangement showcasing Marsalis' septet, and Wills' Milk Cow Blues, a standout from Nelson's recent blues-oriented release.
King sang The Thrill Is Gone, somehow managing to make the ever-familiar anthem seem utterly fresh, and, to the thrill of the crowd, duetted with Clapton on Ev'ry Day (I Have the Blues).
Finally, Charles somehow managed to magically make his keyboard sound like an electric guitar during his pair of numbers. [...].
Dan Aquilante of the New York Post wrote:
[…]. Sizing up the English six-string slinger, the rubber-faced King joked, 'Just because you're younger, better-looking and play better, you think you can just sit down and play?' Clapton, naturally shy, took his shot: 'Aw, B.B., you're not that much older than me.' With the gauntlet thrown down, the two axmen commenced to chop a chord of blues.
King is incomparable for his passionate, stinging electric style, while Clapton is a technical genius who has speed, accuracy and a huge musical vocabulary. Alone, each is terrific; together, they are magnificent. That wasn't lost on Wynton Marsalis and his jazz septet, who backed King and Clapton, or the audience, for that matter. When they played Every Day I Have the Blues, there was no doubt this was a showdown. So who won? The audience that was lucky enough to witness this historic matchup.
This was an unusual blues concert because it examined the orchestral blues of founding fathers W.C. Handy, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington. Unlike the raw delta variety or the more modern Chicago styles of blues, this was the music that eventually evolved into jazz. Bop alto sax man Lou Donaldson demonstrated that while conjuring the ghost of Charlie Parker.
Nelson might seem a weird choice for a blues concert, but he connected the dots between the blues and country. Willie's reedy tenor was bold, offering fine counterpoint to his extremely gentle six-string attack. More than any other artist on the bill, Nelson had rapport with the audience and Marsalis' band.
Only Ray Charles came close to that kind of intimacy with the house. In the finale slot, he offered a pair of very old-fashioned blues numbers that harkened back to Professor Longhair. During the piano rolls of Hang Around Blues [maybe to be identified Worried Life Blues? BS], house pianist Richard Johnson (who was excellent throughout the night), like an eager kid at school, strained to watch Charles' ancient fingers fly across the keyboard. […]
The Reuters archive (ID 8488/03; Ref: 306020043) has a 3m5s news item, taped on 2 June 2003, that first aired on 3 June. Source here.

I'm Gonna Move was released with this CD: