During their Parliament American Blue/Philip Morris Superband worldtour in 1990 Ray Charles and B.B. King closed every show with an 'exit blues jam' in which they mashed up all kinds of farewell blues themes, like Bye Bye/Bye Bye Baby/Good Bye/It's Time For Me To Close The Show.
Single (A): Atlantic 1021, March 1954, b/w It Should've Been Me.
Compilation album: Ray Charles, Atlantic 8006, June 1957.
Taped in New York on 17 May 1953 with Jesse Drakes - trumpet; Sam Taylor- tenor sax; Dave McRae - bari; Connie Kay - drums; Mickey Baker - guitar; Lloyd Trotman - bass.
B.B. King, at the session.
For his last album Genius Loves Company (Concord, August 2004) Ray sought out B.B. King for an amazing duet version of the song (with Billy Preston on Hammond, Irvin Kramer on guitar and Tom Fowler on bass).
Part of an all-star jam, recorded by Cinemax in Rome in February 1989. Ray had a good time sitting behind his keyboards. The other legends were James Brown, B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Esther Phillips, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard. The bandleader was Dave Edmunds; Maceo Parker was there too.
Part of an all-star jam, recorded by Cinemax in Rome in February 1989. Ray had a good time sitting behind his keyboards. The other legends were James Brown, B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Esther Phillips, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard. The bandleader was Dave Edmunds; Maceo Parker was there too.
The 10th anniversary of the 2004 album Genius Loves Company will be celebrated with three deluxe reissues, in variant packages - one of them in (2-LP, 45RPM, 180-gram) vinyl* - and a 192/24 hi-res digital download-version. Another version is packaged with the film Ray; all packs will be including "interviews with guest artists from then and now"; and a "new expanded booklet with updated liner notes and photos".
Just as in 2004, Starbucks will take care of distribution in the U.S.
Remarkable: Concord has submitted all tracks on YouTube.
Concord/Hear Music, September - December 2014; ASIN B00MY5AKEA, B00MWZIASS, B00MY5AK1I. The pricing is at high-premium levels.
* The press release also promises the buyers of the vinyl pack a download voucher for two bonus tracks, but it's not clear if these are the known extra tracks that are part of all variants (including the 2004 pack), or if they are entirely new 'give aways'.
Photo from a 5-day early December 1972 stint at the Valley Music Theater in Woodland Hills, also co-billed with B.B. King.
A kind reader of this blog last week surprised me by sending me a cassette with an audience recording of a 1972 concert in San Carlos (CA). It has a decent audio quality, and - more importantly - it has B.B. King co-performing in the finale of the show.
Ray's second USA tour in '72 was booked from early November to mid December. It included B.B. King. They played the Circle Theatre in San Carlos from November 28 to December 2. At least at one documented occasion, Billy Preston (also) joined Ray during that tour.
B.B. King must have performed his solo part of the show before the (first?) intermission, accompanied by the Ray Charles Band.
The place of the first three Raelettes tunes (#2, 3, 4) is a bit unexpected, but from secondary sources we know of other Ray Charles concert programs in this period where the girls filled their own pre-intermission part of the show.
The order of the tunes on the cassette tape is:
Our Suite (Ray Charles Orchestra)
Hold On, I'm Coming (The Raelettes)
Love Train (with The Raelettes, ft Dorothy Berry )
Rock Steady (The Raelettes, ft Estella Yarbrough)
Intro Ray Charles
Blues For Big Scotia
Marie
Georgia On My Mind
Feel So Bad
Yours
Intro Raelettes
Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma
Over The Rainbow (ft Susaye Greene)
Don't Change On Me
I Can't Stop Loving You
Shake (with B.B. King and The Raelettes)
Laughin' And Clownin' (with B.B. King and The Raelettes)
What'd I Say (with B.B. King and The Raelettes)
Outro:Unidentified blues (with B.B. King and The Raelettes)
Our Suite (#1) is the first known live recording of the tune, that was first released (in January '73) as part of the album Jazz Number II. The version of Love Train (#3), first released on the Raelettes' 1970 album Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, is also a first known live taping. Blues For Big Scotia (#6) is an earliest known concert rendition. Over The Rainbow (#13) is a (quite over the top) solo interpretation by Susaye Greene, very much in the operatic vein of her solo versions of My Funny Valentine (e.g. at the 1968 Paris concert). Yours (#10) and Don't Change On Me (#14) are earliest known concert versions. Laughin' And Clownin' (#17) is one of my favorite Ray Charles songs, who - unfortunately - only very rarely played it live. This concert at Salinas, however, is the second (documented) time he played it together with B.B. King (the first time was during the Sold On Soul concert in 1970). Michael Lydon wrote about the San Carlos gig in Boogie Lightning (1974): "The Ray Charles show was at the Circle Star for six days, one show nightly Tuesday through Friday, two on Saturday night, and a Sunday matinee and evening show”. This makes it possible to define 28 November as the datum ante quem and 3 December as the datum post quem. The audio cassettes that have been circulating among collectors always carried "November 1972" as a date, which means that this concert was taped between 28 and 30 November 1972.*
The line-up of the band included Mike Conlon, Dave Kelly - trumpets; Steve Turre - trombone; Don Garcia, James Clay - alto saxophones, Andy Ennis - tenor saxophone, flute; Leroy Cooper - baritone saxophone, bandleader; John Perrett - drums; Edgar Willis - bass; John Henderson - organ, piano, vocals. The Raelettes were Dorothy Berry, Susaye Greene, Mable John, Vernita Moss, and Estella Yarbough. Regarding the remaining personnel, I guess there were many similarities with the personnel known from concerts in Paris in October 1972, the still largely unknown personnel of the Holy Land tour in late December of 1972, and the musicians contributing to the recording of the Jazz Number II album. * The infomation on the venue and the named musicians is based on intelligence kindly provided by Joël Dufour.
I thought I had covered all there is to know about Ray Charles' and B.B. King's 1990 Philip Morris Superband tour in this article*.
But today yet another TV taping of yet another one of their concerts popped up in my inbox.
This show was broadcast by the Monagasque TV station TMC (Téle Monte Carlo). The venue was somewhere in Italy (both Ray and B.B. throw a few grazie's and grazie mille's into the audience). It may have been a second concert at Palatrussardi in Milan on November 8 (most probable; also see comment to this article, below), or a second concert at Teatro Olimpico in Rome shortly before that date, or a concert before that same date at a third location.
The TV program entailed the following tunes (not necessarily representing the original set order, and not necessarily giving the complete concert):
Love Comes To Town (B.B. King)
Night Life (B.B. King)
Since I Met You Baby (B.B. King)
Paying The Cost To Be The Boss (B.B. King)
B.B. presents the band
'Taint Nobody's Bizness If I Do (B.B. King)
Sweet Sixteen (B.B. King)
Intro RC
Let The Good Times Roll
Mississippi Mud
Just For A Thrill
What'd I Say
Ray re-introduces B.B. King back on stage
[Blues Jam] (with B.B. King)
Bye Bye (with B.B. King)
Who knows precisely when and where the concert took place, and when it was broadcast for the first time? * In the light of what I wrote about the rehearsal sessions, it's remarkable that in this concert's line-up it's not Harold Jones who took the drummer's chair. Did he resign or did he get fired?
Ray and BB at press conference in New York, on or around 1 October 1990 (photo from: Jet magazine, 3 December 1990).
In July 1990 a press release was published to announce that the "Superband tour" of that year would be headlined by B.B. King and Ray Charles. The official title of the series was "Parliament American Blue Concerts", but the format was also called for what it was: the Philip Morris tour - the fifth (or sixth) edition of an international series of blues and jazz concert tours, that were heavily sponsored by the cigarette manufacturer.
The tentative schedule published that day entailed "20-plus concerts in U.S., Taiwan, Philippines, Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, Holland, France and Turkey". Charles was quoted for saying, "I'm looking forward to a wonderful tour with my man B.B. and all those fine cats in the Superband, Gene Harris, Ray Brown, Sweets Edison and the rest."
In early September a second press release was send out confirming the tour, specifying that the first concert of the tour would be in Taiwan, on 29 September.
This Taiwan concert probably didn't go through, or it was rescheduled, because the band rehearsals for the tour, at the Carol Studios in New York, must have taken place on or around October 1, 1990*.
Rehearsals in New York
A friendly spirit recently send me a unique 67 minute tape with raw, hardly edited, video footage of Ray's rehearsals with the Philip Morris Superband. The entourage was a bit stranger than can be seen on the photos: the studio was flocked with cigar smoking spectators (probably a bunch of Philip Morris executives, some VIPs invited by the sponsors, and some press). On the same day Philip Morris also organized a formal press conference with the two stars, and afterwards distributed a press kit.
The 67 minutes are a fascinating documentary on how Ray drilled musicians. With the help of Al Jackson (at the time the Ray Charles Orchestra's band leader - there's hardly a trace of Superband conductor Gene Harris in the whole video) Ray ran the band through the most problematic sequences of his songs. Almost all his directions are geared towards getting "time" and "rhythm" right.
The Genius obviously wasn't all that happy "with all those fine cats in the Superband". And looking at these cats, these feelings must have been fully reciprocal. Sweets Edison was heard muttering, "I need this gig like I need aids".
It may be hard to believe, but Ray had the biggest possible difficulties with getting veterans Ray Brown (bass) and Harold Jones (drums) in the right grooves. The most comical scene is where Ray begs, moans, shouts, wriggles and jumps to get the right "booms" and "bangs" from Harold Jones into What'd I Say.
I don't have a clue about the provenance of the tape. My best guess is that the recording was initiated by the sponsors.
Regrettably, this documentary doesn't have anything of B.B.'s visit to the rehearsal studio.
The line-up of the Superband was: James Morrison, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Joe Mosello, Glenn Drewes - trumpets; Urbie Green, George Bohanon, Robin Eubanks - trombones; Paul Faulise - bass trombone; Jerry Dodgion, Jeff Clayton - alto saxophone; Ralph Moore, Plas Johnson - tenor saxophones; Gary Smulyan - baritone sax; Gene Harris - piano and band leader; Kenny Burrell - guitar; Ray Brown - acoustic double bass; Harold Jones - drums; Ray Charles - vocal, keyboards; B.B. King - vocal, guitar.
B.B. witnessing Ray's rehearsals with the band.
Documented concerts
I've found various, sometimes contradictory, sources documenting the following Parliament American Blue concerts. In the list below I'm following the details of the band's 'official' tour schedule.
At the Grand Rex, in Paris.
26 September 1990: plane New York - Tokyo.
27 September 1990: plane Tokyo - Taipei.
28 September 1990: Taipei; rehearsals and press conference.
9 October 1990: concert Koseinenkin Kaikan, Osaka.
?9 October 1990: Kokusai Kaikan, Kobe?
10 October 1990: Koseinenkin Kaikan, Osaka.
11 October 1990: press conference, concert Tokyo.
12 October 1990: Yoyogi, Tokyo (video bootleg).
13 October 1990: plane Tokyo - Perth.
14 October 1990: press conference, concert at Concert Hall, Perth.
15 October 1990: travel Perth - Gold Coast.
16 October 1990: concert Gold Coast, travel to Brisbane.
17 October 1990: day off in Brisbane.
18 October 1990: travel Brisbane - Sydney.
19 October 1990: concert Sydney (recording of band-only album World Tour 1990) .
20 October 1990: travel Sydney - Melbourne.
21 October 1990: Concert Hall, Melbourne.
22 October 1990: plane Melbourne - Istanbul.
23 October 1990: day off in Istanbul.
24 October 1990: concert, press conference Istanbul.
25 October 1990: concert Istanbul.
26 October 1990: travel Istanbul - Ankara.
27 October 1990: concert Ankara.
28 October 1990: plane Ankara - Dresden.
29 October 1990: "hotel show" Dresden.
30 October 1990: concert Dresden (audio bootleg - see comment and this post).
31 October 1990: travel Dresden -Duseldorf.
1 - 2 November 1990: days off in Duseldorf.
3 November 1990: travel Duseldorf - Maastricht; concert at Mecc, Maastricht.
4 November 1990: travel Maastricht - Annecy; concert Annecy.
5 November 1990: concert at Grand Rex, Paris.
6 November 1990: concert at Teatro Olimpico in Rome (audio bootleg).
7 November 1990: concert in Bologna.
8 November 1990: concert at Palatrussardi, Milan.
9 November 1990: plane Italy - New York.
10 November 1990: concert at Apollo Theatre, New York (B.B.'s part released on DVD and Grammy-winning CD).
Flying to Japan, with Gene Harris.
Tokyo concert
From the troupe's tour schedule.
On 12 October 1990 the last concert in the Japanese leg of Ray Charles' and B.B. King's Parliament American Blue/Superband tour, in Tokyo, was taped.
I've watched a video of the concert. Interestingly, it starts with a very brief documentary sequence from the rehearsals in New York, this time with B.B.
Love Comes To Town (B.B. King)
Ain't Nobody's Business (B.B. King)
The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King)
Let The Good Times Roll (Ray Charles)
Busted (Ray Charles)
Georgia On My Mind (Ray Charles)
Ellie My Love (Ray Charles)
I Can't Stop Loving You (Ray Charles)
What'd I Say (Ray Charles)
Bye Bye (Ray Charles and B.B. King)
Love Comes To Town (B.B.):
Ain't Nobody's Business (B.B.):
The Thrill Is Gone (B.B.):
Ellie, My Love (RC):
I Can't Stop Loving You (RC):
What'd I Say (RC):
Bye Bye (RC & B.B.):
According to the submission text at Youtube, this concert's finale was also taped in Japan:
Japanese version of concert souvenir brochure.
Italy concerts
The gig at the Teatro Olimpico in Rome was bootlegged, and that bootleg was erroneously attributed with the date of 16 November 1990. I've found another copy of the same sound file, with some ambiguous notes about this concert being recorded at Palatrussardi in Milano, on 8 November 1990. The sound quality is mediocre.
Setlist (with obvious corrections) of the Milan concert:
Intro
Let The Good Times Roll
Busted
Georgia On My Mind
I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town
Just For A Thrill
Teardrops From My Eyes
Ellie, My Love
Feel So Bad
I Can't Stop Loving You
What'd I Say
Blues Jam (It's Time For Me To Close The Show / I Get The Blues) (with B.B. King)
Outro
The cover art of an obviously complete bootleg from the concert in Rome, changes the story and the setlist once more:
My interpretation - for the time being - is that the setlist quoted above is indeed from the concert in Milan, and that the Rome concert's setlist was as quoted in this cover art. I'll type it out (with obvious corrections and additions), to make it searchable:
Air Mail Special (Superband)
Centerpiece (Superband)
Battle Royal (Superband)
Intro
Let The Good Times Roll
Busted
Georgia On My Mind
Mississippi Mud
Just For A Thrill
Teardrops From My Eyes
Ellie, My Love
Feel So Bad
You've Got My Number
I'm Gonna Move [To The Outskirts Of Town? BS]
I Can't Stop Loving You
What'd I Say
The Blues Ain't Nothing (with B.B. King)
Flip Flop And Fly (with B.B. King)
Outro
In this post I've described yet another - televized - concert from the tour, taped somewhere in Italy (Bologna?).
Melbourne concert
Australian ABC apparantly has recorded and broadcast the concert in Melbourne (see comments). Who knows more?A (this?) recording is possibly available on Sugarmegs (see comments).
New York concert
A review in The New York Times of the Superband concert at the Apollo in New York on November 10 describes the format of the show:
"The high point of [the] show [...], featuring B. B. King and Ray Charles, came at a predictable point: Mr. Charles crept through a set of his standards, whispering and moaning and caressing the words, imbuing them with a sense of loss and longing that had the hall stone quiet.
[...] Mr. Charles used a whole raft of devices to draw the audience into a world of his own making. Backed by the Philip Morris Superband, Mr. Charles used stop time breaks, setting his voice against silence, or sang a call-and-response duet with the guitarist Kenny Burell. He played an achingly beautiful and slow duet with the bassist Ray Brown, and sang a host of familiar songs, from Georgia on My Mind to What'd I Say. When Mr. King came out to join him for a short, promising final blues, he wrung meaning out of tunes that should have lost their resonance years ago."
B.B.'s part of the Apollo concert was released as Live At The Apollo, King's first big band album ever.
Ray at the Apollo.
Ad for the Apollo concert.
A full history of the tour, including some funny reminiscences on Ray as a 'band leader', and on the reasons why he didn't participate in the Apollo recordings, can be found in Elegant Soul: The Life And Music Of Gene Harris by Janie Harris and Bob Evancho, p. 160 - 165 (see, except for the plot of the latter story, also here).
In December 1990, still cashing in on the local hit success of Ellie, My Love, Ray would already return to Tokyo (see this). This time with his own orchestra, looking a lot happier.
* This information and other details kindly provided by Steve Sigmund and Jeff Kaye.
I've Got News For You (maybe also with B.B. King) [Live]
The Blues Ain't Nothing / Goodbye (titles not sure) (with B.B. King) [Live]
Milan was a stop on the Parliament American Blue Concerttour. This recording can't be of a complete concert. It was probably made on 8 November 1990, in Milan. This source describes a 54-minute video of the concert.
Legends Of Rock 'n' Roll Live was recorded in Rome and originally broadcast on Cinemax in 1989. A gathering of r&b, blues & rock greats, belting out 15 songs followed by an all-star jam, all seven of them in peak form.
Paul Litteral - trumpet; Crispin Cioe, Arno Hecht - tenor saxophones; Chuck Leavell - keyboards; Dave Edmunds (musical director), Robert Funk - guitar); Phil Chen - bass; Terry Williams - drums.
HBO Archiveshas numerous clips of backstage scenes and interviews made during rehearsals for this concert. The concert took place in the Palalottomatic Arena. Some tapes are dated 21 November 1988, but the concert poster that's visible in some of the interview sets clearly has 17 November (one of the edited tapes is dated February 1989; I guess that was not too long before the broadcasting date).
Looking at that poster, and listening to Ray's surprised response, it becomes clear that B.B. King was a last moment replacement of Chuck Berry.
Some of the rushes of the interviews and of the rehearsals can be watched on the HBO Archives site:
Interview with Ray, part 1: Ray sitting indoors: smiling & rocking: talks about the artists he's playing with on show- they're innovators; explains that he is not a specialist (like the others), but a utility man; expresses excitement about seeing back James Brown, Bo Diddley, BB King, Fats Domino, telling jokes and lies to each other.
Interview with Ray, part 2:Ray explains that music is made one way; talks about accolades and being called a legend and a genius; his musical influences; the various music genres & musicians he likes. "Music is written the same way for everybody. I wished the world was like that."
Interview with Ray, part 3: Ray talks about Little Richard & Jerry Lee Lewis being one of a kind; explains the key to his longevity; his musical diversity; mentions future projects.
Reuters has archived an item on a press conference (without Ray), that aired on 16 November. The documentation of the reel is still including Chuck Berry in the line-up.
The content smells a bit like a desperate PR attempt. The statements of Diddley and Brown are hilariously far away from "reasons for doing the concert".
In the documentation Reuters explains that the concert was "[...] staged for the benefit of Unicef", and that it "[...] has already cost over two million dollars to stage, but more than 50,000 dollars has been set aside for Unicef. Live coverage of the show is to be broadcast in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Television stations in Europe and around the world are signing contracts for a later edited version. On Wednesday, some of the stars practiced their songs on stage and talked about their reasons for doing the concert."
But during the press conference Bo Diddley said on tape, "Rock 'n Roll is dead? I'm not going anywhere no way, Rock 'n Roll will never die." James Brown said, "Nobody has the monopoly on the feeling, nobody has the monopoly on God - may I go please?" Source here.
DVD: Image Entertainment, 5 December 2000, ASIN: B000051S5Q.
Mess Around: [You'll get the whole concert here!]
A Fool For You:
Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On / You Don't Love Me No More (Jam):
Backstage: Ray and B.B., Satchmo & Joe Adams (from Jet, Mar. 12, 1970).
On 23 February 1970, at Madison Square Garden, the NAACP organized a tribute to Duke Ellington, titled Sold On Soul.* If the miracle of suddenly finding some footage of this concert on YouTube wasn't big enough, the Web also provides us with an eyewitness account by Warren Marr II, in Crisis Magazine (March 1970, page 96 - 99):
The evening started at eight, and didn't end until 1:45 the next morning. The event was hosted by Sammy Davis Jr., but everything went spontaneous - there were no rehearsals, no choreography, no pre-arranged order. First miss Peggy Lee, the Les McCann Trio, Roberta Flack, Stevie Wonder (10 year old [sic!]), Irene Cara, Elayne Jones, the Voices Of East Harlem, Reverend Roberts and The Angelic Choir, did their things. But "[...] then a musical blitz krieg began": the Modern Jazz Quartet played a set, and then B.B. King.
"Mr. King remained on stage for an unbelievable, rocking blues duet with the great Ray Charles at the organ. [...] The Ellington musicians came on stage. And then the Duke himself. As Duke was taking his bows, Ray Charles switched to piano. Duke's organist took his place. Louis Armstromg walked on stage to sing Hello Dolly, accompanied by these men at piano and organ and Duke's full orchestra joining for a piece of the action. Satchmo said, 'Duke, I brought something for you.' He handed the honoree [the] trophy."
The Los Angeles Sentinel of March 5 reported that after intermission:
"Ray sat down at Wild Bill Davis' organ; Davis took over on piano; B.B. King picked up his guitar, and Ellington [...] helmed his band and the impromptu sidemen in some of Ray Charles' classics. Guest vocalist Louis Armstrong then joined forces, and Ellington batoned 'Hello Dolly', with Charles on piano interchanging verses with Armstrong, As the Duke remarked when the applause finally stopped, 'I always wanted a piano player who could sing as well'."
The TV coverage was produced by Charles Jones, on behalf of the NAACP.
Ray and B.B. played Laughin' And Clownin' (see second clip below). After that Ray switched to piano (Wild Bill Davis taking over the organ) to do Satin Doll. Also read this review.
*Initially called 'Silhouettes in Courage', in some sources also mentioned as 'Soul To Soul'.
Hello Dolly (with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, B.B. King, Wild Bill Davis):
Promo clip including Laughin' And Clownin' (with B.B. King).
Source materials of the video:Ina, ID CAF90011615 (first aired on TF 1, on 3 July 1970). A fun article about a preceding promotion for the concert is here.
Visible on this album cover: Robbie Kwock and John Boice (from c. 1984).
Nothing Like A Hundred Miles (with B.B. King)
I Wish I'd Never Loved You At All (with Gladys Knight)
Too Hard To Love You (with Jim Johnson)
Now I Don't Believe That Anyone
Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
Stranger In My Own Hometown (with Kenny Carr)
Over The Top
I'd Walk A Little More For You
If That's What' Cha Want
Save The Bones For Henry Jones (with Lou Rawls and Milt Jackson)
Ray came back home (from Nashville) to record with his own band in his own RPM studio (but without The Raelettes), also inviting some old friends to join in. Arrangements by Marty Paich, Quincy Jones, Ralph Burns and Ray Charles. The trumpet dubs (and possibly the bones too) for track #10 were recorded on 31 December 1987 or on 1 January 1988. Track #6 was arranged by James Polk.*
Ray originally meant to produce track #10with B.B. King. In 2005 King recalled: "The first time I recorded with him, he wanted me to do Save The Bones For Henry Jones. Ray wanted to change it; he didn't want to do it the way it was written... I could never get it right. And he said to me, 'God damn, Brother B, I thought you was a musician!'"
Milt Jackson later revealed that Ray wanted so bad to feature him on his album that he had erased the taping of his own piano playing, making room for Milt to overdub his vibes solo.*
Personnel**:
Mark Curry, Jeff Helgesen, Ted Murdock, Jeff Kaye - trumpets; Mike Christianson, Armin Marmolejo, Steve Sigmund, Charlie Schofner - trombones; Al Jackson, Chris Lega, Ricky Woodard, Rudy Johnson, Leroy Cooper - saxophones; Ernest Vantrease - keyboards; Kenny Carr - guitar; Anders Swanson - bass; Paul Kreibich - drums.
Album: Columbia 40703, September 1988.
Listen here to Nothing Like A Hundred Miles (With B.B. King).
Save The Bones For Henry Jones (with Lou Rawls and Milt Jackson): here.
* Info kindly shared by Joël Dufour. ** Info kindly provided by Steve Sigmund and Jeff Helgesen.
"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?
Single (A): ABC 11259, January 1970, b/w That Thing Called Love.
Single (A): Atlantic 1021, March 1954, b/w It Should've Been Me.
Unreleased (but available thru digital bootleg).
Ray's second USA tour in '72 was booked from early November to mid December. It included B.B. King. They played the Circle Theatre in San Carlos from November 28 to December 2. At least at one documented occasion, Billy Preston (also) joined Ray during that tour.
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