An Incomplete Audio Of Ray Charles’ 2nd A Fool For You Ballet-Concert Series (1989)

May 12, 1989
Wolfgang’s Concert Vault can’t be praised enough for sharing their huge catalog of American live music with their internet audience. Their only flaw is that they often don’t know exactly what they’re publishing.

A recent file of a Ray Charles performance at the “ST Theatre” in New York, taped on 12 May 1989, offers 16 out of 18 untitled tracks. Without any explanation, two of the files (#03 and 04) have been omitted by Wolfgang. One tune (track #13/14) has been split in two (understandably, after an applause break). And 4 of the tracks (#01, 06, 15, 17) are  mere announcements and/or applause tapings.
What’s left, however, is a high quality audio of one of the Fool For You-ballet performances with the New York City Ballet at the State Theatre of the Lincoln Center. The tracks are:

1. [Track 01] Intro RC (by announcer) + applause

2. [Track 02] Georgia On My Mind

3. [Track 03,missing from Concert Vault] Ain’t That Love
4. [Track 04,missing from Concert Vault] Don’t You Know
5. [Track 05] It Should’ve Been Me
6. [Track 06] Intro Raelettes (by RC)
7. [Track 07] Hit The Road Jack
8. [Track 08] Rockhouse
9. [Track 09] Mess Around
10. [Track 10] A Fool For You
11. [Track 11] I’ve Got A Woman
12. [Track 12] Drown In My Own Tears
13. [Track 13] What’d I Say [version 1]
14. [Track 14] What’d I Say [version 2]
15. [Track 15] Applause
16. [Track 16] Ol’ Man River
17. [Track 17] Applause
18. [Track 18] America The Beautiful [+ closing announcement]

This 9 p.m. show on May 12th was also taped for TV by PBS, and broadcast on May 14, 1989. A complete video of this performance has survived also, but with a lesser sound quality.
Charles was in top condition, performing all tunes with gusto, as if they were still all part of his daily repertoire.

Choreographer Peter Martins and Ray Charles rehearsing (from Esquire, May ’88).

Ray played this partiture of songs (most in reconstructed arrangements that came as close as possible to the original recordings of the 1950’s and 1960’s) for the first time in 1988, involving the core of his best known small band line-up. In ’89 he again brought his old brass players Guilbeau, Crawford, Newman and Cooper, but this time Marcus Belgrave (trumpet) was replaced by Jimmy Owens (an old friend of Crawford), and he also brought the contemporary Ray Charles Orchestra’s rhythm section, with Jeff Ballard on drums, Kenny Carr on guitar and Darren Solomon on bass. Understandably, given the ballet’s choreography, the band only got little room to fool around. David Newman got a few ‘expected’ pre-arranged solo parts, and Leroy Cooper solo’ed on Mess Around. The Raelettes in 1989 were Anita Brooks, Trudy Cohran, Kathryn Collier, Angie Workman and Estella Yarbrough. The New York City Ballet Orchestra (including a great little choir that excelled on Ol’ Man River) was conducted by Robert Irving.

May 11, 1989
The groupe’s performance on 11 May 1989 was also made public by Wolfgang’s Vault. The sound quality is less, but bearable, and it has the merit of representing the complete partiture.

1. Georgia On My Mind (partial)
2. Ain’t That Love
3. Don’t You Know
4. It Should’ve Been Me
5. Hit The Road Jack
6. Rockhouse
7. Mess Around
8. A Fool For You
9. I Got A Woman
10. Drown In My Own Tears
11. What’d I Say
12. Ol’ Man River
13. America The Beautiful

May 14 or 15, 1988
Finally, Wolfgang also published a (first known complete) taping of one of the 1988 performances. They say it was recorded on March 13, but that year the series were staged on May 14 and 15 as the closing part of the American Music Festival, also at the Lincoln’s New York State Theater. Unfortunately, the recording sounds like an amateur board mix.

1. Georgia On My Mind 
2. Ain’t That Love
3. Don’t You Know
4. It Should’ve Been Me
5. Hit The Road Jack
6. Rockhouse
7. Mess Around
8. A Fool For You
9. I Got A Woman
10. Drown In My Own Tears
11. What’d I Say
12. Ol’ Man River
13. America The Beautiful

*Special thanks to Joël Dufour and André Monnot for helping me correct an earlier, hasty and sloppy, version of this post.