Ray Charles & The Raelettes Playbacking Crying Time At Grammy Show

This awkward clip (see how The Raelettes appear to have sunk into the studio floor) looks like a(n extremely rare) example of Ray Charles and the girls playbacking a song. It comes from The Best On Record, a TV special produced for the 9th Grammy Awards, taped on 2 March 1967, and broadcast the next day. The Grammy website describes Ray’s part in the show as “After singing a few bars of I Can’t Stop Loving You, Frankie Avalon and Buddy Greco joked that anyone who sings like Ray Charles was ‘Italian, whether he wants to be or not.’ They then introduced Charles as ‘one of the greatest Italian singers,’ before the Genius of Soul performed his classic version of Crying Time for which he had won the Grammys for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording and Best R&B Solo Vocal Performance, Male or Female.”

* The line-up in this show is: Alex Brown, Merry Clayton, Gwen Berry, Clydie King. The lead vocal on the original recording was delivered by Lillie Fort.