Ray Charles Live In Sitges (1976)

From La Vanguardia, Aug. 8.

On 26 July 1976 Ray Charles gave a concert in Sitges, as a closing act of the Primer Festival de Jazz. The show was broadcast live by TVE 1.
As yet, no footage has surfaced.

From Spanish newspaper articles it becomes clear that after the cameras stopped, Ray's manager, Joe Adams, ostensibly said goodbye to the audience, "sowing doubt in the auditorium". Soon after that, the organization announced that the concert would resume after an interval of fifteen minutes. But Adams claimed that the job was done, ordered the orchestra to abandon the stage, and disappeared, "leaving the organizers in a state of confusion". Sources:  here, here and here.

Drummer Scott von Ravensberg remembers: "We were to do two sets at an outdoor stage, right on the coast. We did the first show and the people went wild, they loved it..! Well back in the band tent we were told that we wouldn't be doing the second set and that we needed to pack up and leave... quietly. So we did!

Jim Campbell on bass just to the left of Ray; Andy Ennis just behind the piano,; Henry Coker just above Ray's glasses; Bob Knedlick to Henry's left behind and above Andy; Ernest Vantrease at the far end of the piano. Photo by Josep Maria Alegre.

Apparently Ray had found out that the concerts were being recorded and said 'No second show!' I'm not sure, and won't mention names, but someone told someone else that misunderstood what someone's 'deal' had included, and didn't bother to tell Brother Ray.
I guess everyone in the city must have been at the show... it was kind of crazy because there were NO cabs! So we, I mean every one in the band, the girls AND Ray (that's right, Ray!) had to walk back, a mile or so, to the hotel along the ocean in the dark! [...] Well as it turned out [...] the road crew had to pack up everything and get it back to the hotel. It started to rain at some point, and the people went ape shit when there was no 2nd show. They rioted and bum rushed the stage! They got to the girls' costume & make up bags and threw things all over, and tried to get to the drums and band fronts and the Fender Rhodes piano that we carried, as well as to the bass and guitar amps. I don't know how Harold and Tony [i.e. the road crew] did it, but they beat back the hordes and somehow got our stuff back to the hotel!"

The Sitges stage, just before hell broke out. From La Vanguardia, Aug. 8.

Ray Charles Starring In Portofino Porto D'Arte (1995) And A Song That Was Never Released

On 14 July 1995 Ray Charles played with his Orchestra and The Raelettes at the Piazzetta, part of the local harbor's quay, in Portofino. The (voice over) comments were delivered by Amii Stewart and Ezio Guaitamacchi, both taking the liberty to sometimes speak through the music. One source specified that Amii Stewart also did a duet with Ray, but in the tape that I saw she could only be seen on stage (at the end) for a solo performance, and (in the middle) for an unusual interruption of the show, introducing Ray to a representative of Motorola, who honored the Genius with an utterly vague award. Barbara Morrison opened the show, but didn't make it to my video copy.
Ray was escorted to and from the stage by an entourage of around 12 broad shouldered people, amongst whom 3 or 4 street cops and a richly uniformed police chief, leading the parade both times, stood out.
The show, presented (i.e. probably sponsored?) by Portofino Porto D'Arte, was directed by Gabriele Cazzola. The stage had a big sign with the text (possibly of a bigger festival) "Hello America".
The TV program aired on the 16th on Canale 5, being announced as "the event of the season", with an audience of 5 million, and "over one hundred television commercials" [sic!] sold by Canale 5-owner Fininvest.

La Stampa wrote that the concert coincided with the release of Ray's "latest album", which was to contain O Sole Mio, recently produced in LA and Milan with Patrone Gennaro, Salvatore and Nunzio Esposito Reinathe, the mandolin section of Renzo Arbore's The Italian Orchestra. Supposedly, the track was even to be released "in May" as a single (cf. this). But to my knowledge the tune never reached the market (also cf. this).

More reviews and a very brief interview can be found here and here ("Triumphal entry [...] dazzling smile, a pair of avant garde design spectacles [...], an incredible floral tuxedo").

Personnel:*
Roger Ingram, Kurt Weiss, Dave Hoffman, Ken Scharf - trumpets; Steve Sigmund, Michael Guerrier, Dupor Georges, Charlie Schofner - trombones; Steve Elliott, Al Jackson, - alto saxophone; Al Waters, Rudy Johnson - tenor saxophone; James Farnsworth - bariton saxophone; Ernest Vantrease - keyboeards; Steve Gregory - guitar; Curtis Ohlson - bass; Peter Turre - drums; The Raelettes (Renee Georges, Stella Yarborough, Tonette McKinney, Elaine Woodard, Angie Workman) - backing vocals.
*Listing by Steve Sigmund.

The song list was:

1. Intro RC
2. Riding Thumb
3. Busted
4. Georgia On My Mind
5. Oh, What A Beautiful Morning
6. How Long Has This Been Going On
7. Teardrops From My Eyes
8. Angelina
9. Blues For Big Scotia
10. A Song For You
11. Introduction Raelettes (by RC)
12. Interruption: Motorola Award
13. Shameless (Estella Yarbrough)
14. I Can't Stop Loving You
15. Smack Dab In The Middle
16. I'm Gonna Keep On Singin'
17. What'd I Say
18. O Sole Mio
19. Outro

Angelina:

Ray Charles Sings Georgia With Giorgia (1995)

On 27 April 1995 Canale 5 aired a big live show from the Palasport di Casalecchio in Reno (Bologna) to celebrate Alberto Tomba's world championship in alpine skiing. Ray Charles invited Giorgia (Todrani) on stage to sing Georgia On My Mind (her father named her Giorgia after the song).

Among the other stars of the evening were Neri Per Caso, Biagio Antonacci, Manuela Di Centa, Silvio Fauner, Gustavo Thoeni, Piero Gros, Gino Bartali, Giacomo Agostini, Pierluigi Marzorati, Dino Meneghin, Sara Simeoni, and Novella Calligaris.

Sources: here and here.

Who knows more?

Ray Charles In A Foul Mood In Positano (1996)

On 7 July 1996 both Corriere della Sera and La Stampa had big stories on a concert given the night before by Ray Charles and Renzo Arbore (also see this article), at Castelvetrano in Positano. My Italian is sketchy, but this is my reconstruction (to the Italian readers of this blog: please correct me if I got things wrong!).

The night of July 5 another concert organized by the same impresario, at the archaeological site of Selinunte in Sicily, had been canceled at the last moment by local authorities, who were afraid that the mass crowd would cause damage to the historic location.
For the concert in Positano, the impresario offered Ray - who was staying at a hotel in Naples - to pick him up by helicopter. The "king of soul" refused, preferring to bridge the distance by car - which turned out to be a hellish trip on the Amalfi Coast drive.
Ray arrived much too late, and in a foul mood, at the concert location. He put up a fuss, refusing a special performance - that was to be televised - of O Sole Mio together with Renzo Arbore, although that was part of the contract, which had a clause whereby up to 24 hours before a concert he could have decided not to perform, "without penalty, with the court of Los Angeles jurisdiction in the event of litigation."  During the discussion his mood didn't improve, "even though he had received $70,000 in advance for the two concerts".
Arbore's assessment of the situation was negative, "I do not think its possible," he stated. "We have not rehearsed. What can we do? [...] We have to take these U.S. superstars as they are. Moreover, before an artist like Charles one must always bow."
Ray started his usual concert routine at the beautiful Positano beach (half a meter from the sea, with the chairs on the sand), without disclosing his final decision on the duet with Arbore. The setlist went from Georgia On My Mind to Angelina, showing that he was still able "to penetrate the feelings of the audience". Arbore and the tv crew were still in stress when he came at the end of the set list, and left the stage. "Thus, the thriller lasted until late at night: soul and mandolin, yes or no?" But then, finally, Ray and Arbore came back on stage to do O Sole Mio, accompanied by two guitars and three mandolins from Arbore's orchestra. 

(Also cf. this).

Who knows more about the destiny of the TV recording?

Ray Charles Ft. In Festa Azzura (With Renzo Arbore) (1994)

During the 1994 Soccer World Cup, held in the USA, Rai Uno produced the show Festa Azzurra at Madison Square Garden in New York. The show was broadcast in Italy via satellite. The evening was hosted by clarinetist and orchestra leader Renzo Arbore. His The Italian Orchestra performed together with a number of American guests, including Ray Charles, who played 'O Sole Mio.
The clip below has some footage with Ray, possibly from this same performance. (Ray and Renzo had met before, and would meet again...).

Update: this clip was released on the album Renzo Arbore And Friends (Gazebo 11 November 2014):

Ray Charles Part Of Oral History Project At USF (1977 - 1978)

In the summer of 1947, 16 years old, Ray Charles tried to make a living in Tampa, partly succeeding by playing piano ("for a few days") with a C&W band, The Florida Playboys).
In 1977 and 1978 Otis Anthony interviewed about ninety civil rights pioneers and members of Tampa's black community for the Tampa Urban League. Some of them talked about music, and the Tampa honky-tonk bars, and gave first-person accounts of Ray Charles when he got his start in Tampa.
The tapes were relegated to Anthony's garage, but were recently restored and digitized by USF Professor Cheryl Rodriguez, and are now archived in the USF library. Hear this.

Ray Charles On Rock & Roll Remember Radio Show (1983)

According to this contract, Ray performed at two broadcasts of Dick Clark's NBC (American) Bandstand, on 10 and 12 April 1957.
[There's always some reason to doubt the authenticity of this kind of documents, but this one looks genuine; it was recently sold for $216]. The contract above was signed by "the other" Ray Charles Offenberg.

Also read this, on Ray's appearances at the television version of American Bandstand.

The 4-LP set above contains a 4-hour recording of Dick Clark's Rock & Roll Remember - Radio Show, including the original program segment sheets, from 21 May 1983 (radio shows were still archived on wax or vinyl at the time). The year 'remembered' in this show was 1959.
Ray Charles' music was featured with several tunes, spanning his music output from the mid 50s to the mid 60s, and with a series of interview sequences. I guess this interview took place for this occasion, in 1983.
I haven't been able to verify it, bur after Clark's passing, Jerry Waxman wrote that "[Clark] was the first mainstream jockey on a commercial station to play Ray Charles (Hallelujah I Just Love Her So)".

Ray Charles Ft. In Romeo Und Julia 70 (1969) + Amazing Photo Find

Romeo Und Julia 70 was a lavishly produced 2-part tv mini-series directed and written by Michael Pfleghar (1933 - 1991), at the time Germany's most famous TV director. Its first episode was aired, in German, by ZDF (who also coughed up the $2 million dollar budget) on 14 May 1969, the second on May 18th, but it was also distributed in English for other markets (possibly incidentally under one of its alternative working titles, The Year Of The Jokers). I remember seeing it about 40 years ago, on Dutch television.

Pfleghar shot 120 kilometers of color tape and edited that back to 180 minutes. His Julia is working in a grocery store, Romeo is a taxi driver. Their love strengthens, when they mix their dream worlds with reality.
In a newspaper announcement of the Dutch broadcast, the program was positioned as a "Total Show" of the '60s. The film surely captured the climate of the 60s, using elements of drama, vaudeville, musical, news, sports and travel report.
Pfleghar's ambition was to present a modern Romeo And Juliet, using contemporary-modern TV semiology to make it arty (and rather pretentious). The two protagonists followed the dramatic Shakespearean storyline, but, quite anachronistically, they also regularly consulted celebrities on what to do next, to avoid the expected dramatic outcome of the steadily developing tragedy. One of these celebs was Ray Charles. I remember him sitting at his piano, offering a piece of advise to Julia, and singing a few bits.

Hampton Fancher played the role of Romeo Müller, and Tina Sinatra - at the time living together with director Michael Pfleghar in Munich - played Julia Smith. Among the other guest artists were The Bee Gees, the Kessler Twins, the Dutch singer Liesbeth List, Eartha Kitt, Jerry Lewis, Dionne Warwick, Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra, but there were also sequences with public figures like Christiaan Bernard, Hugh Hefner, Richard Nixon, Queen Sirikit, Gunter Sachs, Wernher von Braun, and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The filming locations were Bali, Bangkok, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Tokyo, Las Vegas, Nevada, Washington DC, and Ray's RPM Studios in Los Angeles.

In a 2017 (double-)interview, Fancher claims a much more active role in the production of Romeo Und Julia. He remembered the central theme as "How would Romeo and Juliet succeed in falling in love in a world with so much against them? You know, with all the distractions - political, financial, ambition, all that. Romeo And Juliet couldn't happen in 1968 was the idea. [...]
So it was taking this young guy and this young girl who both were innocent and then the narrative was him achieving certain goals and how they became corrupted. It wasn't a strict script, it was improvised a lot. It was like, I would talk to Nixon or I would talk to Frank Sinatra or ask questions. It was then about the fall of our relationship to our death. It opens up with a scene in our coffins in a graveyard and then it goes back. It was ridiculous and yet it had a conceit that was really interesting.
[Pfleghar's film] was made in the cutting room. We went around the world two times. You know, he had endless money, small crew. I wrote a lot of it. It was adventurous. I shot some of it. It was fun.
It didn't get released in America. It was almost released theatrically but then something happened. It was popular in Europe on television. At that time it was the biggest seen event on television. They did it two nights running."
In the same (double-)interview Michael Almereyda suggests that the footage is still around somewhere: "We found a copy".

A German jazz photo enthusiast published a hitherto unknown photo reportage on Flickr. This is how he described his lucky find: "These are proofs I found at the trade market Ostbahnhof. The seller told me, the shots were taken at Geiselgasteig [in] 1967 during a session with German film producer Michael Pfleghar [Gieselgasteig is the ,film city' to the south of Munich, the head office of Bavaria Film - BS]. Since I could'nt find any of these pictures anywhere on the net, I post them on Flickr."

I found out that the photos were made by Peter Brüchmann. The pictures were "making of" shots (in the last photo we see Michael Pfleghar) from the Romeo Und Julia shooting with Ray, at his RPM studios in Los Angeles. See the slideshow on Flickr - here. Or admire the astounding quality of the pics below:

Raelette Susaye Greene, then Ray's sweetheart, left:

Edgar Willis in the back:

Tina Sinatra in the middle:

Hampton Fancher left, Michael Pfleghar right (Edgar Willis in the background):

This picture was was auctioned in 2019 (slightly distorted, from weak print):

Ray Charles In Alta Classa (1992)

Alta Classa was a series of twelve 2-hour programs broadcast by RAI Uno in 1991 - 1992. It had a dual format: the first part was a show, the second part a portrait based on interviews with the star, and with people who knew the protagonist well.
On 7 January 1992 Ray Charles was the star in a show that was also a tribute to Sergio Bernardini, a famous Italian impresario who, many years before, was the first to bring Ray to an Italian stage (and who, oddly, was also one of the producers of this show; also see this show from '84).
To handle the 300 million lire budget, RAI Uno had the format sponsored by the municipality of Versilia (where the show was staged) and the province of Tuscany. The show was probably taped in December 1991, when Ray also did a concert in Turin.
I've seen a 13-minute recap of the '92 show. It seems to have had a This Was Your Life-like format, where Bernardini surprised Ray with guests to do duets with, and other acts - all on stage. I saw snippets from I Can't Stop Loving You, Good Love Gone Bad (with Toto Cutogno), Crying Time (with Fausto Leali), a long interview - also on stage - by Bernardini, a fragment of a gospel group, a full version of Precious Thing in a duet with Dee Dee Bridgewater, and O Sole Mio in a duet with Lina Sastri (the RAI website offers that whole song).
Other guests were Sugar, Pino Daniele, Renzo Arbore, Roberto Murali, Gassman, and Gino Paoli. The program was presented by Gianni Minà. The critic of La Stampa wasn't too positive about the show. He asked himself, "[...] why does Minà ask the audience for applause when Ray Charles confesses to have five grandchildren? And what is the point, after a response from Ray Charles, to come up with a 'See, even a genius has moments of emotion'?"
RAI released the show part on a 68-minute VHS (see illustration above; it's sometimes for sale on Ebay).

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: