Ray Charles As Arthur Tibbits In St. Elsewhere (1987)

Still: Arthur comforting a fellow patient
by singing You've Got A Friend.

In Jose, Can You See? (season 5, episode 16 of St. Elsewhere's 5th season, first aired on 4 February 1987 on NBC) Ray really showed that he could act, playing the role of Arthur Tibbits, a blind street person.

Ray also gave an unplugged rendition of Carole King's You've Got A Friend.

When you live in the UK, you can download the episode here.

With opening scene (NSFW):




The sequence with the song:

Ray Charles On Shindig!

With conductor Onzy Matthews.

Shindig! was a fast-paced, teenage music TV show that featured major rock and roll artists and was televised for a live audience. At the time it arguably was the most fun and music-packed teenage show in the U.S.
Shindig! aired from September 1964 through January 1966 and began as a half hour program, expanded to an hour and retracted back to a half hour before going off the air on 8 January 1966. Ray was a guest on the show that aired on 19 May 1965, directed by Dean Whitmore. He looked as if he had gained some weight during his (rehab-)sabatical.

Billy Preston sat in for Ray during rehearsals - the first time they (kind of) worked together professionally (see Billy's testimonial clip here). At Shindig the music and vocal tracks were often recorded one or two days before the episode was taped. The performers then rehearsed numerous times to make sure that their acts looked live. In some cases - as with Ray's, I guess - the vocals were live.

Ad in Billboard, 15 October 1966.

Opening medley (song excerpts): The Righteous Brothers: This Little Girl of Mine. Donna Loren, Bobby Sherman: Sticks and Stones. The Blossoms: Guess Who. The Wellingtons: Hit the Road Jack. Ray Charles: I Can't Stop Loving You. (End of medley). Ray Charles: I've Got A Woman, Georgia. The Righteous Brothers: Bring It on Home To Me, Sticks and Stones. Donna Loren: Cycle Set, Into My Heart. Dinah Lee: You Don't Talk about Love, Oh, Boy! Bobby Sherman: Hey Little Girl, Well Alright. The Zombies: It's Alright with Me, Summertime. George Soulé: I Love The Way You Love. Joe Williams: I'm Sticking with You Baby. Glen Campbell: I Guess I'm Dumb. Ray Peterson: House Without Windows. The Wellingtons: Little Old Lady from Pasadena. The Shindogs: Hippy Hippy Shake. Finale: Ray Charles: What'd I Say (with the Righteous Brothers and The Blossoms). Source here.

There are several DVD collections of the series. Shindig! The Complete Series, from 2005, seems okay.

Georgia On My Mind:


I've Got A Woman:

Georgia On My Mind (Atlanta, 1988)

For a CNN shoot from 25 September 1988 (someone painting a portrait of Ray on the foreground, for Ray's birthday five days later), look here.

Los Angeles Grants Ray Charles Studio Landmark Status

Raw video materials from CNN covering Ray Charles' last public appearance, on 30 April 2004, at RPM in Los Angeles are kept here.
I just found back this moving article by Ray's biographer, David Ritz: Last Words of Brother Ray.

Ray Charles Live In Antibes (2001)

From Ray's last Antibes concert in 2001 (with a quintet line-up including Jean-Michel Bernard on organ and Michel Gauchier on sax), on or around 21 July, we have a shaky clip of Just For A Thrill, a nearly complete version of Georgia (which you can watch here), plus a brief news report with some concert and interview fragments (Source: Ina, ID 1761739001044; mother tape 1761739001) from a France 2 news cast that aired on 21 July ("A myth, a living legend... The organizers of the jazz festival [...] managed to convince the great Ray Charles to return...").

Antibes, 2001:

Is This T For Sale?

Ray Charles Live In Japan (1982)

The series of clips shown below represent a - seemingly complete - video registration of concerts at the Nippon Budōkan in Tokyo on 17 and 18 December 1982*. The sound quality (of the YouTube clips or of the original registration?) is mediocre at best. But the quality and the impact of the close-ups of Ray is high. And seeing George Yanagi (Japan's coolest R&B artist) having the day of his life is big fun.

1. Intro
2. Riding Thumb
3. Busted
4. Oh, What A Beautiful Morning
5. Just Because
6. Born To Love Me (with Elaine Woodard)
7. Hit the Road Jack
8. I Can't Stop Loving You (with intro: Hit The Road Jack + A Fool for You) 
9. Hallelujah I Love Her So (with George Yanagi)
10. Georgia On My Mind (with George Yanagi)
11. What'd I Say
12. Outro** 

The brief - strange and slurring - improv on Hit The Road Jack almost sounds like a mistake; Ray quickly lets it fade over in a few notes of A Fool For You, a much more usual intro to I Can't Stop Loving You.

Personnel:***
Musicians: Dean Congin, Carlos Chavez, Doug Martin, Phil Guilbeau - trumpets; John Boice, Dan Marcus, Mayo Tiana, Steve Davis - trombones; Brian Mitchell, Rickey Woodard, Rudy Johnson, Clifford Solomon (bandleader), Louis Van Taylor - saxophones; Ricky Kirkland - drums; Tony Matthews - guitar; Jeff Takiguchi - bass; Ernest Vantrease - Hammond B3. The Raelettes: Trudy Cohran, Estella Yarbrough, Elaine Woodard, Janice Mitchell, Ann Johnson.

*Information kindly provided by my friend sk4260volt, who entitled his YouTube playlist as Joyful Christmas Concert. **Setlist reconstructed by Hector Tarín. ***Information kindly provided by Doug Martin, Dean Congin, and Janice Mitchell.

[Intro +] Riding Thumb:

Busted:
 
Oh, What A Beautiful Morning:

Just Because:

Hit The Road Jack (+ intro I Can't Stop with elements of A Fool For You):

I Can't Stop Loving You:
 
Hallelujah I Love Her So (with George Yanagi):

Georgia On My Mind (with George Yanagi):

Born To Love Me (with Elaine Ross):
 
What'd I Say:
 

Ray Charles: Welcome to Crossover Website

In 2002 Ray Charles revived the CrossOver label, just to release his own album Thanks For Bringing Love Around Again (and an album by his protégé Ellis Hall).
In 2003 the record company even got its own multimedia website, which - curiously enough - is still live, and still running some video and audio squibs.

Ray's video welcome message is here. A few tunes from the album are here.

Kennedy Center's Honors Tribute to Ray Charles (1986)

Ray Charles received The Kennedy Center Honors for exemplary lifetime achievement in the performing arts in 1986 from President Ronald Reagan. According to one of my sources, "Staid patrons of the Kennedy Center clapped and sang along as Wonder pounded out a musical tribute to Ray Charles [...]"."Stevie performed I Just Called To Say I Love You, while 50 children from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind did America The Beautiful. The Columbus Times of 30 December 1986 reported that the children sang You Light Up My Life and that Stevie Wonder played America The Beautiful on his harmonica.

Montage of all winners, probably distributed as a promotional wire photo.

A 'complete 2-hour video' of the event is offered on the web, but I'm not sure if Ray's tribute is really part of this (the Columbus Times wrote: "Sorry you will not eye or ear these side events on the tube rebroadcast...").

This was also the only time - as far as I know - that Ray Charles was caught singing the national anthem . Watch a fragment of it here (don't miss Lucy holding Ray's hand).

There's also a video containing parts of that 1986 event (including a biographic documentary), and an October 2003 performance by Ellis Hall - at the request of the ailing Ray Charles, who had recently been co-producing an Ellis album on Crossover Records. Watch it here (requires RealPlayer). And don't miss this photo. Some more fragments of the same '86 event, Ellis' 2003 act, and more promo stuff from Ellis are here (again with a confusing timeline;-):

The 1986 program was announced as "An evening of tribute and entertainment", first from the White House, then the Kennedy Center. It took place on December 7, 1986.
Below is the - seemingly complete - footage of the tribute to Lucille Ball. In Part 1 Walter Cronkite introduces the honorees and shows a recap of their evening at the White House. Ray, sitting right next to Lucy, is on camera a lot in the other parts as well. Reagan's speech can be watched here; national anthem here.

Part 1 of tribute show for Lucille Ball:

Part 2:

Part 3:

For a clip of the honorees singing the national anthem, see this. The same sequence was also filmed by 
NBC.

Ray Charles Plays Archangel & Sax In Limit Up (1989)

Clipping from Jet, 30 October 1989.

Director Rich Martini:
"My film is about a runner at the Chicago Board of Trade (Nancy Allen, Robocop) who sells her soul to the devil (Danitra Vance) to be a successful soybean trader. Her boss (Dean Stockwell) tries to thwart her, her boyfriend (Brad Hall) tries to help her, and his boss (Rance Howard) pitches in. Ray Charles plays God*, a sax player who stands in front of the CBOT, and depending if you tip him or not, that's how well you're going to do that day. Its subplot is ending world hunger through manipulating soybean prices."
* Ray's character is called Julius. In publicity materials I saw, his role is labeled as "archangel Julius".

VHS: Limit up. MCEG 0970449925, 1989.

With Nancy Allen.

Rich Martini informed me that Ray's character was based on a guy he saw outside the Board of Trade who played the sax and wore shades.

With Danitra Vance.

"Ray said 'I can play, I'll play the sax'. So that's him playing. In the scene where Sally Kellerman is singing, it was part of an overall tune that John Tesh recorded, so he replaced Ray so it was in tune. But otherwise, that's Ray on saxophone. [...] Ray outside was recorded on set, we only had him 3 days. Inside is not Ray, just the last few notes which oddly were in the same key as the score. Ray just improvised. if you hear a sax with no other music, that's Ray, the rest revoiced."
"We improvised the scene where he claims to have 'seen' Nike, but we had to put [Ray's] lines in Braille and he taped it to his leg so he could 'read' them. That's why Ray always rubbed his legs when playing or sitting at the piano; he was reading his dialog."
It's unclear to me if Ray's theme was formally composed and if it had a title (but if it did, The River Charles would be a good candidate).

Fragment:

The whole movie (director's cut):