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February 19, 2012
Is That Ray Charles, Playing That Piano At The Trianon In Seattle, In 1948?!
Read moreI scanned this photo from my copy of Paul De Barros, Jackson Street After Hours: The Roots Of Jazz In Seattle (Sasquatch Books, October 1993, ISBN-10: 0912365927), depicting trumpet player Floyd Standifer at the Trianon Ballroom in Seattle, in the Summer of 1948. Ray Charles expert Joël Dufour pointed me at the possibility that the […]
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January 26, 2012
An Early Handbill Of A Gig At Elks’ Patio In Redwood City, With Lowell Fulson (1951)
Read moreEarliest known handbill of a Ray Charles gig, the “sensational blind singing star”, with Lowell Fulson at Elks’ Patio in Redwood City, CA. Looking at the bit of adhesive tape at the top of the picture, this can’t have been bigger than a postcard (and it may have been re-published as such). Update: the size […]
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January 26, 2012
The Genius Lighting Up His Pipe (1963)
Read moreRay Charles, smoking a pipe in 1963. Newspapers’ photo archives are a relatively new category of – increasingly valuable – online sources for historical research. So far, a limited number of (mainly American) newspapers have created little photo archive webshops, from which they sell quality photo prints (i.e. copies) from their collections. The Chicago Tribune […]
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December 29, 2011
Keeping Time
Read moreRay Charles’ timing was legendary. According to this research, it even reached “the limits of human time perception and physical action”. Soundclip of Fever, with Nathalie Cole: (I don’t want to ruin a good story, but did any of the researchers make sure that it was actually Ray himself doing the snapping, and, if so, […]
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December 21, 2011
Christmas With Ray Charles (5x*)
Read moreBusinesswise, after scoring hit records, the best thing a musician can do to increase the value of his (back) catalog, is to tape Christmas songs. Ray Charles did so on five occasions – sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes odd, sometimes brilliant – and always soulful. In 1976 (or 1979?) he celebrated Christmas In Ettal, with […]
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November 26, 2011
Who’s That Girl?
Read moreA photo in the New York Amsterdam News of August 3, 1963. Ray, as far as I know, did not have a daughter called Barbara. And the girl doesn’t really look like an 11-year old. So who is she?
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October 3, 2011
Ray’s Other Hand (1961)
Read moreFrom Jet magazine, Apr. 20 and 27, and May 25, 1961. 20 March 1961: Ray Jr. finds his father with an arterial bleeding from his left hand. After his house doctor’s treatment, Sr. resumes playing after a week or so. According to legend, for the next weeks Ray would play piano with his right hand […]
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September 26, 2011
Was It Chubby Wise That Ray Charles Played With In The Florida Playboys (1947)?
Read moreSee this for update. NOTE 10 October 2011: Inthis threadfrom 2000 on RootsWeb another, and much more substantiated, story about The Florida Playboys seems to unfold. The main participant in this discussion is the daughter of “Tiny” Grier, one of the Playboys. She has informed me that she has recently resumed doing further research on […]
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September 17, 2011
Ray Charles Flying With His Piano (1983)
Read moreLevitation (from Latin levitas, “lightness”) is the process by which a person, an animal or an object is suspended by a physical force against gravity, in a stable position without solid physical contact. A number of different techniques have been developed to levitate matter, including the aerodynamic, magnetic, acoustic, electromagnetic, electrostatic, gas film, and optical […]
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September 16, 2011
Ray Charles, Tonight In The Bay Area (1962)
Read moreKDIA, on the 1310 AM frequency, was founded as KLS in 1921. In 1945, it changed its name to KWBR, and its target audience to the African-American segment. In 1959 the call letters were changed to KDIA. Through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, they were was the premier soul and funk station in the San […]
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August 20, 2011
Ray’s Atlantic Contract (1952)
Read moreIn 2010 Warner Music Group announced the Sight Of Sound project, entailing the description and preservation of the non-vinyl (i.e. mainly photographic, typographic and administrative) contents of “[…] nearly 100,000 boxes from warehouses around the globe, whose accumulated […] memorabilia track popular music from the Edwardian and Victorian ages to disco and jazz, from Beethoven […]
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August 10, 2011
Ray Charles Headlining Dr. Jive’s (Last?) R&B Revue At The Apollo (1958)
Read moreFrom 1952 to 1958 Dr. Jive presented the radio shows to hear all the New York neighborhood vocal groups and all the new doo-wop and R&B records, on WWRL. In his afternoon and nighttime programs Dr. Jive (real name Tommy Smalls) also played blues artists, and he nurtured a regular Latin beat segment. For a […]