Ray Charles Is In Town - Chronology 1992

Photo (taken in New York) by Bruce Webber.

1992

Photos by Patrick Harbron.

Interviewed for Smoothie documentary. See this.

Ft. in documentary Willie Nelson – My Life. See this.

Some time during the year a gig at Caesar's, Atlantic City. 

1 January 1992

Interviewed in Nightline: Reliving The Glory Days Of The Apollo Theatre (air date). See this.

7 and 8 February 1992

Center for the Performing Arts, Gainesville FL.

14 February 1992

Honored by The County of Los Angeles Public Library.

15 February 1992
Honored at 13th annual African American Living Legends Series (Black History Month) at A.C. Bilbrew Library, Los Angeles.

With  Kenneth Hahn, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.

19 February 1992

Inducted in Florida Artists Hall Of Fame ("A piano awaited Charles, but he declined to perform, saying he never sings in the morning"). See this.

17 March 1992

Arco Arena, Sacramento CA, with Sacramento Symphony (5,000 attending; $40,000 profit on box office revenues; "will help dramatically in solving the symphony association's cash-flow problems and meeting payrolls for the remainder of the season").

April 1992

A series of proposed anti-AIDS ads starring Whoopi Goldberg, George Burns and Ray Charles rejected by the Centers for Disease Control. See this.

10 and 11 April 1992

Lincoln Symphony Orchestra's spring pops concerts in the Lied Center for Performing Arts, Lincoln NE; tickets $20, $30, $40.

16 April 1992

On Tonight Show. See this.

25 April 1992
At ASSN Convention at Convention Center, Orlando FL.

30 April 1992

SunFest at Flagler Drive, West Palm Beach FL (with Carole King, Kenny Loggins, Buddy Guy, Rickie Lee Jones, Arturo Sandoval, Najee, Tom Grant). 

Photo by Mark Mirko.

3 May 1992

SunFest, Palm Beach.

8 May 1992

Symphony Hall, Salt Lake City UT, with Utah Symphony.

10 May 1992

With Utah Symphony at Salt Lake City's Symphony Hall, Salt Lake City UT.

27 May 1992

Inducts Nat Cole into Songwriters Hall of Fame during 23d annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremonies at Sheraton Hotel, New York. See this.

Ray Charles and Paul Anka; photo possibly shot at this event.

30 May 1992

"With singer Ray Charles supervising, the orchestral and choral portions of composer Quincy Jones'"Black Requiem" were recorded at Radford University by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the 55-member Voices of Roanoke. Charles will add his solos to the recording later in his Los Angeles recording studio.The 61-year-old rhythm-and-blues star spent most of Saturday with engineers in a mobile recording studio [...]". Also see this. 

2 June 1992

Interview on The Early Show. See this.

4 June 1992

State Theatre in Minneapolis MN.

5 June 1992

Chicago Theatre, Chicago IL.

6 June 1992

Columbus Arts Festival, Palace Theatre, Columbus OH ("feet tapping, socks drooping and hands flailing").

7 June 1992

Elm St. Auditorium in Nashua, N.H., benefit for Breast Cancer Center at Boston's Faulkner Hospital.

Verizon Wireless Music Center, Noblesville IN.

10 June 1992

Faulkner Breast Center, Boston; benefit for breast cancer research.

11 June 1992

Boston Garden (for Lotus Software), Boston MA; with Gladys Knight.

12 - 13 June 1992

Valley Forge Music Fair, Devon PA.

14 June 1992

Westbury Music Fair, Westbury NY.

18 June 1992

Fraze Pavilion For The Performing Arts, Kettering OH.

19 June 1992

Front Row Theater, Highland Heights OH.

20 June 1992

Meadow Brook Music Festival, Rochester Hills MI. 

22 June 1992

With B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Dr. John and the Fabulous Thunderbirds

jamming at Downtime Bar, New York, to announce their Blues Festival '92 Tour.

25 June 1992

Capitol Music Hall, Wheeling WV. Photos here.

26 June 1992

25th Hampton Jazz festival at Coliseum, Hampton VA.

27 June 1992

JVC Jazz festival at Avery Fisher Hall, New York City NY; with B.B. King ("Mr. Charles is the most perfect example of the popular singer's art I can think of. The operatic voice, unaided by amplification, has always depended on invulnerability for success; faltering of tone production has equaled failed performance. In Mr. Charles's world, faltering becomes a powerful tool, an appeal to his audience for indulgence, sympathy, even help. His singing rasps and strains; it moves between hesitant croaks and falsetto. Indeed, there is always the illusion of a striving for vocal sound not quite within his capability, as if the singer were circling a world of completeness he knows he can never enter. Just as American comedians win audiences by laying bare personal inadequacies, Mr. Charles, on a much higher artistic level, commands us by his sublime failures, spread out naked before his listeners. Never forget, however, that these futilities are less fact than illusion. Every stringy, gritty tone that comes out of Mr. Charles's mouth is exquisitely tuned, and what in a conventional voice would be considered dry and ugly has for him a resonance that carries surely, even at the quietest levels. Few musicians of any genre are so in command of their musical ideas and so capable of manipulating them for spur-of-the-moment invention"; read review here).

29 June 1992

Fraze Pavilion for the Performing Arts, Kettering.

From 1992 European Tour brochure.

1 July 1992

Gröna Lund, Stockholm.

2 July 1992

Spektrum, Oslo.

3 July 1992

Festival at Scandinavium in Gothenburg.

5 July 1992

Folkspark, Åhus.

Photos by Bitte Yue.

8 July 1992

Jazzport '92 - Jazz Giants in the Park, in Stadtpark, Hamburg; with Nancy Wilson; review here.

Photo by Hardy Schiffler.

9 July 1992

Festhalle, Frankfurt.

Poster for the Jazz Gala '92/Giants of Blues & Jazz show, co-billed with Dizzie Gillespie and Nancy Wilson.

11 July 1992

Hohenthiel Festival at Borg Ruine, Karlsbastion, Singen.

Festival venue left. Photo by David Hoffman.

12 July 1992

Alter Schlachthof, Aachen.

14 July 1992

Royal Festival Hall, London. ("Charles's reputation would be secure even if he devoted the rest of his career to Gregorian chant, but for now it is cheering to note that he is probably the last man alive who can tease his backing vocalists by shouting 'Sock it to me, baby' and get away with it"; read this).

15 July 1992

Jazz festival at Empress Ballroom, Blackpool.

18 July 1992
Remparts de Mousserolles, Bayonne.

Ticket stub, coll. Jacques Merle.

 

Photos by Jacques Merle.

Guest at Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown's wedding, in a gazebo on Houston's Mendham, New Jersey estate.

19 July 1992
Espace Auditorium, Sully.

20 July 1992Juan les Pins, Antibes. See this. Photo here.

21 July 1992 
Palais des Sports, Patinoire, Megève.

22 July 1992
Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle, Munich.

25 July 1992
Atwood Concert Hall of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, Anchorage AK.

28 and 29 July 1992
Parker's, Seattle; read review here, and a great story by musician/fan Doc Williamson here.


31 July 1992
11th annual Mt. Hood Festival of Jazz.

7 August 1992
Circus Maximus Theater at Caesars, Atlantic City NJ.


14 August 1992
Warwick Musical Theatre, Warwick RI.

15 August 1992
Oakdale Theater in Wallingford CT.

16 August 1992
Waterloo Village, Stanhope NJ.

18 August 1992
Wolf Trap Filene Center, Vienna VA.

24 August 1992
CNE Grandstand, Toronto ON.

26 August 1992
South Shore Music Circus, Cohasset ("ushering more than 1,400 devotees on a saucy, sultry sashay through gut-raw jazz, country, pop and soul").

27 August 1992
Concert in Cohasset ("solid throughout, and at moments astonishing").

28 August 1992
Tanglewood Music Center, Lenox MA.

Photo by Lee Everett.

29 August 1992
Amphitheater, Chautauqua.

30 August 1992
Melody Fair, North Tonawanda NY ("If God ever sang the blues, the sound that would come out would be Ray Charles' voice").


2 September 1992
With B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Dr. John and the Fabulous Thunderbirds at Blues Music Festival, at the Jones Beach Theatre in Wantagh NY.

5 September 1992
Riverport Amphitheatre, Maryland Heights MO.

7 September 1992
40th anniversary of the Children's Center for the Visually Impaired at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center Hotel, Kansas.

17 and 18 September 1992
Humphrey's, San Diego; postponed to 29 and 30 September, "to accommodate soft- drink TV commercial filming".


19 September 1992
Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles.

20 - 22 September 1992
Coach House, San Juan Capistrano CA; tickets at $39.50. Read review here.


26 September 1992
Paul Masson Mountain Winery in Saratoga CA.

28 September 1992
Kern County Fair Grandstand, Bakersfield CA.



29 and 30 September 1992
Humphrey's Cncerts by the Bay, San Diego CA (also cf. 17 and 18 September).

3 October 1992
Paramount Fall Gala, UTTM.

8 October 1992
Performs at Mall Of America Gala (Ray scores $50,000). See this.
Minges Coliseum in Greenville NC.

11 October 1992
Fox Theatre, Atlanta GA.

15 October 1992
In the Ballroom of the Joseph Koury Convention Center at Holiday Inn Four Seasons, Greensboro NC.

21 October 1992
Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, Sarasota FL ("knocking the audience out of their chairs").

22 October 1992
Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater FL; tickets $25 - $29.

23 October 1992
Raymond F. Kravis Center in West Palm Beach FL ("playing the keyboard, his feet skittering and skipping back and forth, his legs twining and untwining, his body jerking and swaying, enslaved by the rhythm. Is he milking the groove or is the groove milking him? It's always so hard to tell").

24 October 1992
Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Fort Lauderdale FL ("It was as if he had gathered the 2,500 people in the audience around him to tell them the story of his life").

31 October 1992
Braden Auditorium, Illinois State University, Normal IL; tickets $21-$25.

Photo probably made at this concert.

3 November 1992

At RPM Studio in Los Angeles, photo shoot for Musician Magazine, by Patrick Harbron ("can’t remember what he said to make him laugh").

7 November 1992
"Recording star Ray Charles has canceled his Nov. 7 Parents Weekend concert at Eastern Illinois University. Charles [...] has canceled all U.S. performances after Oct. 31 because of a South American tour" (of which I've found no trace).

15 November 1992
The Majestic Ventura Concert Theatre, Ventura CA; read story here.
On Donahue: 25th Anniversary Show. See this.

18 November 1992
WordPerfect 1992 Comdex party at Caesars Palace.

25 November 1992
Circle Star Center, San Carlos CA.

Ad in Billboard (Oct. 17, 1992) for Uh-huh branded compilation.