Save The Bones For Henry Jones (With Lou Rawls And Milt Jackson)

Album: Just Between Us, Columbia 40703, September 1988.

Recorded at RPM International in the first week of 1988.

With uncredited members of the Ray Charles Orchestra (i.e. 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).

Ray originally meant to produce this tune with 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!'"

Trumpeter Jeff Helgesen: "My recollection is that we did it all in one afternoon (?) - we were playing Vegas and we had one day off, so the trumpet section and one other (bones? can't remember) were flown in and back on either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day."

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.*   

You can listen to all the fun here.

* Info kindly shared by Joël Dufour.

That's Where It's At (With Lou Rawls)

Album3: Lou Rawls, At Last (Blue Note B2-91937, 1989).

David Fathead Newman on tenor sax.

Rawls: "I did a number on Ray's last album, called Save The Bones For Henry Jones*, so he was happy to do this for me."

*For the album Just Between Us (1988). Ray initially wanted to do that song with B.B. King.

Ray Charles - A Man And His Soul (1983)

Ray Charles - A Man And His Soul, A 40th Anniversary Celebration was a 2-hour special television tribute, celebrating Ray's 40 years in show business, taped at the Cocoanut Grove club in LA in the early summer of 1983, produced for national syndication by The Dick Clark Company for Multimedia Entertainment. The show was directed by Gene Weed.
People from 5 September 1983 announced that "At 52, Ray Charles is still hitting the ivories and belting out the blues with timeless authority. And to celebrate his 40th year as a performer of jazz and soul, 500 of Charles' friends and fellow musicians showed up [...]".
Among those who sang Charles' praises were Glen Campbell (duet), Lou Rawls (duet), Engelbert Humperdinck (duet), Dottie West (duet, and another song with Ray and Mickey; see photo below), Joe Cocker (duet), Andrae Crouch (duet as seen in photo from Jet magazine from 19 September 1983, and duet with choir), Dick Clark, Mickey Gilley (duet), and there were special appearances by Rev. James Cleveland, Quincy Jones, Barbara Mandrell, Smokey Robinson, and - by prerecorded message - Stevie Wonder, doing Hallelujah, I Love Ray So.
The show was filmed during two consecutive nights (the band wore black tuxes on the first night and white tuxes on the second).
Also look here for a contemporary news paper article with photos from the show, implying an earliest-known air date of 30 October 1983.

The order of the songs is yet unclear to me. Below I've clustered them based on stage specs and what Ray was wearing, and - partially - following a messy video edit of parts of the show.
The identified songs were on YouTube the last time that I checked on them:

• Georgia On My Mind
• I Can't Stop Loving You
• Hit The Road Jack
• I've Got A Woman (part 1 of medley)
• Drown In My Own Tears (part 2 of medley)
• Hallelujah I Love Her So (part 3 of medley)
• Born To Lose (part 4 of medley)
• America The Beautiful
• Angels Keep Watching Over Me (aka All Night, All Day) (with Andrae Crouch)
• Unidentified duet (with Dottie West)
• Unidentified song (with Dottie West and Mickey Gilley)
• "Feel So Good Being Here With You"/Going Down Slow (with Lou Rawls)
• You Don't Know Me (with Mickey Gilley) 
• Unidentified (2nd) duet (with Mickey Gilley)
• You Are So Beautiful (with Joe Cocker)
• Interview (pre-taped)
• What Kind Of Man Is This (with Rev. James Cleveland) (pre-taped)
• By The Time I Get To Phoenix (Glen Campbell), All I Ever Need Is You (with Glen Campbell)
• Please Release Me (with Engelbert Humperdinck)

* Sequences from Stevie Wonder's song were accidentally also filmed, from different angles, for the documentary I Love Quincy (1984).

Personnel:*
Musicians: Mark Curry, Dean Congin, Robbie Kwock, Phil Guilbeau - trumpets; Mayo Tiana, John Boice, Scott Fisher, Dana Hughes - trombones; Clifford Solomon, Brian Mitchell, Rudy Johnson, Don Wilkerson, Louis Van Taylor - saxophones; James Polk - piano, Eugene Ross - guitar, Roger Hines - bass, Ricky Kirkland - drums. The Raelettes: Trudy Cohran, Anne Johnson, Janice Mitchell, Elaine Woodard, Estella Yarbrough.
*Information kindly provided by Robbie Kwock and Steve Sigmund.

The segment with Glen Campbell:

Just Between Us (1988)

Visible on this album cover:
Robbie Kwock and John Boice
(from c. 1984). 

1. Nothing Like A Hundred Miles (with B.B. King)
2. I Wish I'd Never Loved You At All (with Gladys Knight) 
3. Too Hard To Love You (with Jim Johnson)
4. Now I Don't Believe That Anyone
5. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
6. Stranger In My Own Hometown (with Kenny Carr) 
7. Over The Top
8. I'd Walk A Little More For You
9. If That's What' Cha Want
10. 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 #10 with 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.