God Bless America Again (With Billy Preston, Slash A.O. aka The American Rebels)

Compilation album: Ray Charles Sings for America, Rhino/WEA, 3 September 2002.
[After the album release, the song was remixed for radio DJs; see below].

The weeks after the 9/11 attack the American airwaves were filled with patriotic songs. Ray's America The Beautiful was probably the song that was most frequently played.
A year later Rhino/WEA released a compiler, Ray Charles Sings for America, spanning the Ray Charles Songbook from 1960 to 1997. All the songs' lyrics were especially meaningful in the context of the commemoration.
The 20th track, God Bless America Again, was newly produced for this album.
Producer Terry Howard revealed how the song came about at the occasion of Ray's and his endorsement of Sonar 2.0 studio equipment (source here):

The crew contributing to the track posed as
"Ray Charles and the American Rebels" for the photo
above. From left to right: Ray Charles, Rosemary
Butler, Billy Preston, Slash, Magic Kramer, Craig
Eastman, Jimmy Powers, and Scott Lombardi.

"We were all really affected by the tragic events of September 11th. Everyone involved with this project wanted to do something to help out but we were not sure what. The seed for the idea started when I saw Congress get together to sing God Bless America to rally our nation. This was the group that separated church and state in the first place, and they chose to sing this song rather than the National Anthem. I was really moved. I thought that maybe it might be a song that we could do to raise some money to help the victims.
I did some research on the internet and found that just about everyone had recorded God Bless America already, over 1000 people in fact. While I was looking, I found a single instance of God Bless America Again that was recorded by Loretta Lynne and Conway Twitty in the 1960s. It took a while, but I tracked down the song (none of the Country stations in the LA area had a copy to play). When I heard the track I knew there was something very special about it, and when I played it for Ray he said "We've got to do that song".
I started making some calls and just about everyone I contacted said they wanted to get involved. The opportunity to work with Ray is usually enough to get someone involved in a project, and the fact that this was for a good cause made it even better."

In another interview initiated by Sonar (source here), Howard  outlined the technical details of their recording process:

"After we had most of the backing tracks recorded, but before Ray cut his vocal, he decided that the drums needed a different arrangement. We used Sonar's Remove Silence feature to slice the drums into individual hits. Ray and I then rearranged the drums until they had it the way he was looking for. I then had Scott Lombardi, the drummer on the track, learn and recut the parts. We also used Sonar to slide the bass line to lock up with the new drum tracks in a few places. [...]
We always back up our tapes. At one point during the process I was backing up a number of tracks from one tape to another and we had an equipment malfunction that resulted in 4 seconds of original tracks that had not been backed up being damaged beyond repair. Luckily I already had 80 percent of the song within Sonar, and I found sections of audio that matched the lost perfomances, then blend them into the gap caused by the damaged tape. [...]
After finally hearing the single played over the radio I've decided on a few tweaks I'd like to make to the mix. I'm in the process of remixing the track now. When I'm finished I'll export a hi-res MP3 of the new mix that we can service to program directors across the country."

Who knows more about that remix?

Imagine

Single (12"?); probably a promotional
release by Crédit Agricole, 1998 (?).

In 1998 the French bank Crédit Agricole continued their long running "Imagine" advertising campaign with a small series of commercials for which Ray Charles' friend Jean-Pierre Grosz produced the soundtrack, with Ray's special version of John Lennon's Imagine. You can still watch some samples online: here and here.

The complete song was first released in France as a CD single. There also was another (12"?) single, obviously (cf. the logo) produced for the bank, for promotional purposes.

Cover art of re-release Strong Love Affair (1997),
with Imagine-bonus.

Subsequently, in 1997, Imagine was added as a bonus to the re-issue of the Strong Love Affair CD.
In 2001 the tune was part of the 2-CD compilation The Definitive Ray Charles (which was only released in Europe).
The first U.S. release of the original was in 2002, on the compilation CD Ray Charles Sings For America.
The studio takes were later abused for a track on Genius And Friends (2005), where Ray's vocals were partly replaced by a disastrous interpretation by Ruben Studdard. This production should be erased from all records.

The 'French' version was recorded at Guillaume Tell, Davout, Harryson, Penthouse Studio, and RPM in Los Angeles.

Personnel: Jean-Michel Mernard - p; Slim Batteux - o; Claude Salmieri - dm; Paul Braslin - g; The Harlem Gospel Singers - backing voc. Erwan Le Marc'Hadour - arr.

Original recording:

Ray at the Goodwill Games.

Ray performed a magnificent version of Imagine during The Goodwill Games Opening Celebration on 18 July 1998, from the World Financial Center in New York. Listen here.

The footage of this show was part of the Forever Ray stamp promotion (DVD: Concord, CRE-34585-02, 2013).

The great B3 Hammond organ parts were played by Billy Jay Stein. "I received a chord chart and improvised my organ parts. [...] We had one run through that day," he informed me.
As usual, The Genius nailed the tune as nobody else could.

The 2-hour live TV show, from the World Financial Center in New York, was  directed by Ron de Moraes and televized by TBS. Jason Howland was the music director. Other performers were  Natalie Cole, Brandy, BeBe Williams, Marc Cohn, Linda Eder, Isaac Hayes, All 4 One, and Hootie & The Blowfish. See this.

Ray Reflects On America [Parlando]

Compilation album: Ray Charles Sings for America, Rhino/WEA, 3 September 2002.

The weeks after the 9/11 attack the American airwaves were filled with patriotic songs. Ray's America The Beautiful was probably the song that was most frequently played.

The album was released a year after the 9/11 attack (read this for context).
Only one song track, God Bless America Again, was newly produced for this release, but so was this spoken monologue. Ray talked about "how wonderful and great, and lovely and beautiful this country we live in is", and explained why songs were selected for this album. After highlighting Ol' Man River ("he just keeps rollin' along") he says, "I wish I could do that".