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27 May 2017

Ray Charles Ft In Le Spectacle Noir


Le Spectacle Noir was a 45 minute ORTF documentary directed by Armand Ridel, first broadcast by RTF 1 on August 30, 1972. It presented an impressionistic, kaleidoscopic mix of existing films and documentaries with contemporary street scenes, concert footage and interviews with jazz and r&b stars.
With a.o. Ray Charles (contributing a good, but truncated, version of I've Got A Woman, from a concert in circa 1972), Count Basie, Tina Turner, Louis Armstrong, Cecil Taylor, Miriam Makeba, and Jimmy Hendrix (from the Woodstock movie).
The film has been archived by INA, ID: CPF86653022.

18 May 2017

The Schiffman Index Cards On Ray Charles At The Apollo, 1957 - 1971


The Schiffmans, owners of the Apollo Theater, kept concise and hugely interesting notes on all acts he booked and re-booked. Each index card tracked the acts through the years, listing the dates of the opening nights (many gigs were for one week), the amounts paid out, and - above all - the Schiffman family's brutally honest comments on the act's quality and cash box success.
Up till now the notes were only known from the Frank Schiffman Apollo Theatre Collection in the Archives Center of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, but recently a few additional cards on the Apollo's top artists (Ray Charles, but e.g. also James Brown and Aretha Franklin) have popped up on Ebay.

04 May 2017

How To Raycharlesify A Tune

Ray Charles' studio version from 1964 of A Tear Fell (single: ABC-45-10571; album: ABCS-480-4), as arranged by Sid Feller, was nice enough.
But only in this live version at the Pleyel Room in Paris, in a concert on October 8, 1968, the Genius could share what he really heard in the song, showing how beautiful it really was.
The original tune was written in 1955 by Dorian Burton and Eugene Randolph. Two of their grandchildren recently met in the comments section on YouTube:



03 May 2017

We're Gonna Make It (The Raelettes)

Until now* I've confused the description of this Raelettes live-song, which was on the band's repertoire between 1978 and 1984, with the We're Gonna Make It-track from the Renaissance album.

This actual tune was written by Billy Preston. Rene Hall penned the arrangement for the band.

Live:
'78 LC Antibes
'84 LC Viareggio
'84 LC Warsaw - Released**
'86 LC Toyohashi

*Thank you, Steve Sigmund. **Search for Ray, then page-search for Warsaw, then go to ~39:20.