A substantial part (i.e. about half) of Ray Charles' 1st concert at the Northsea Jazz Festival on July 13, 1980, has just emerged on YouTube for the first time.
The cameras caught The Genius in excellent condition, and in a playful mood (watch him fool with his rhythm section, and hear him deliver some rare scatting in the final!), but the big and pleasant surprise is the rendition of This Time (I'll Be The Fool), starring Madelyn Quebec.
The newly found footage, starting with Madelyn:
Ray Charles - vocals, piano, el. piano; Mitch Manker, Doug Crescimano, Tom Swayzee, Doug Martin - trumpets; Art Velasco, Dan Marcus, Papo Vázquez, Steve Davis - trombones; Ricky Woodard, Clifford Solomon, Ira Weinstein, Rudy Johnson, Mark Roland - saxophones; Tony Matthews - guitar; Curtis Ohlson - bass; Peter Turre - drums; James Polk - keyboards. Raelettes: Estella Yarbrough, Pat Peterson, Madelyn Quebec, Trudy Cohran, Avis Harrell.
06. Don't You Love Me Anymore
07. Intro Raelettes (by RC)
08. Love Is What We Need (ft. Estella Yarbrough)
09. Knock On Wood (ft. Trudy Cohran)
10. I Can't Stop Loving You
11. I Can See Clearly Now
12. This Time (I'll Be The Fool) (ft. Madelyn Quebec)
13. I'm Gonna Keep On Singin'
14. What'd I Say
15. Outro
In 1975 Ray had produced and co-engineered a recording of This Time by Darrow Fletcher for his Crossover label (the B-side of CR-983, 1975, b/w We've Got To Get An Understanding); the song was also released on the compilation album Darrow Fletcher – Crossover Records 1975-79 - Soul Sessions (Kent Soul - CDKEND 382, 2012).*
Ray sang and played an unplugged version of this tune as a 1-minute intro to Crying Time during the 1980 Northsea Jazz Festival on July 13 at the Congresgebouw in The Hague.
Live Concert: Northsea Jazz Festival, Prins Willem Alexanderzaal, Congresgebouw, The Hague – July 13, 1980. Period: The Tangerine/Crossover/Atlantic Years (1973 – 1980). Artist: Ray Charles (with The Raeletts, The Ray Charles Orchestra). Label: Unissued. Personnel:
Ray Charles - vocals, piano, electric piano; Mitch Manker, Doug Crescimano, Tom Swayzee, Doug Martin - trumpets; Art Velasco, Dan Marcus, Papo Vázquez, Steve Davis - trombones; Ricky Woodard, Clifford Solomon, Ira Weinstein, Rudy Johnson, Mark Roland - saxophones; Tony Matthews - guitar; Curtis Ohlson - bass; Peter Turre - drums; James Polk - keyboards. Raeletts: Estella Yarbrough, Pat Peterson, Madelyn Quebec, Trudy Cohran, Avis Harrell - vocals, background vocals.
1st concert
1. Project S (Ray Charles Orchestra)
2. Riding Thum
3. You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want To Do It
4. Georgia On My Mind
5. Oh, What A Beautiful Morning
6. Just Because
7. Some Enchanted Evening
8. Don't You Love Me Anymore
9. Love Is What We Need (ft. Estella Yarbrough)
10. Knock On Wood (ft. Trudy Cohran)
11. I Can't Stop Loving You
12. I Can See Clearly Now
13. This Time (I'll Be The Fool) (ft. Madelyn Quebec)
14. I'm Gonna Keep On Singin'15. What'd I Say
2nd concert
1. Metamorphosis (Ray Charles Orchestra)
2. Let The Good Times Roll
3. Georgia On My Mind
4. Oh, What A Beautiful Morning
5. How Long Has This Been Going On (solo: Tony Matthews - g)
6. Feel So Bad (solo: Tony Matthews - g)
7. She Knows (solo: Curtis Ohlson - b)
8. I Want Your Love (ft Estella Yarbrough)
9. Do It To Me Slow (ft Pat Peterson; solo: Tony Matthews - g)
10. Crying Time (ft Madelyn Quebec; intro with There's A Long Long Trail A-Winding)
11. You Are My Sunshine (ft Trudy Cohran)
12. Stormy Monday (solo: Tony Matthews - g)
13. What'd I Say
Remarks
TV recording produced by AVRO. Directed by Theo Ordeman. Parts of program hosted live by Pim Jacobs. Only tracks #4, 5 and 9 of the second concert were broadcast (late night on Oct. 13, 1980) on Dutch TV. In 2016 AVRO shared track #16 of the first concert on YouTube. Reelin' In The Years offers licenses to 23 separated tracks. Source materials: Beeld- & Geluid-Archief, ID #97039. 1st concert is stored on two tapes: a) #1 - #9; b) #9 [damaged copy] - #18. Track #15 has a brief glitch (prob. repairable by good editor). The messy start of the 1st concert was caused by a discussion between Ray Charles and the Festival people. Ray said (i.e. pretended) he didn’t agree to a TV recording, and demanded extra payment although the promotor produced a contract including a TV clause, signed by Ray’s management. After 20 minutes (and the audience becoming impatient) the Genius was able to pocket the extra money, $5,000, provided in cash by the sponsor, in hard cash.
In the second concert #9 (Do It To Me Slow) is the only known full version of this song (in an excellent performance featuring Pat Peterson); for many years the main theme of the song was used as the introduction 'jingle' for the walk-on of The Raeletts. The tune was arranged by Ray Charles and James Polk. Ray gave #10 (Crying Time) a unique little intro with a citation from There's A Long Long Trail A-Winding. Stormy Monday (#12) got an excellent - slowwww - rendition, reminiscent of the brilliant version known from the 1975 concert in Madrid (both times with Tony Matthews doing his magic on guitar!). Remarkably, I Can't Stop Loving You, was not performed - a rarity.
Doug Martin, Peter Turre and J.P. Verger helped to reconstruct the line-up.
"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.
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