Save The Bones For Henry Jones (With Lou Rawls And Milt Jackson)

Album: Just Between Us, Columbia 40703, September 1988.

Recorded at RPM International in the first week of 1988.

With uncredited members of the Ray Charles Orchestra (i.e. Mark Curry, Jeff Helgesen, Ted Murdock, Jeff Kaye – trumpets; Mike Christianson, Armin Marmolejo, Steve Sigmund, Charlie Schofner – trombones; Al Jackson, Chris Lega, Ricky Woodard, Rudy Johnson, Leroy Cooper – saxophones; Ernest Vantrease – keyboards; Kenny Carr – guitar; Anders Swanson – bass; Paul Kreibich – drums).

Ray originally meant to produce this tune with B.B. King. In 2005 King recalled: “The first time I recorded with him, he wanted me to do Save The Bones For Henry Jones. Ray wanted to change it; he didn’t want to do it the way it was written… I could never get it right. And he said to me, ‘God damn, Brother B, I thought you was a musician!'”

Trumpeter Jeff Helgesen: “My recollection is that we did it all in one afternoon (?) – we were playing Vegas and we had one day off, so the trumpet section and one other (bones? can’t remember) were flown in and back on either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.”

Milt Jackson later revealed that Ray wanted so bad to feature him on his album that he had erased the taping of his own piano playing, making room for Milt to overdub his vibes solo.*   

You can listen to all the fun here.

* Info kindly shared by Joël Dufour.