Ray Charles Live In Antibes (1982)

After almost two years of research for this blog, it’s becoming increasingly rare to find video footage which is entirely new to me. But last week Hector Tarín Nieto, a young Ray Charles enthusiast from Valencia in Spain,  surprised me with the message that he had found a video with (parts of) the concert at the Antibes Jazz Festival, on July 20, 1982. The track list doesn’t contain any big surprises, but the overall quality is good, and this concert’s version of Just Because alone made it worthwhile to watch the program.

(Video still).

The title cards make it clear that the taping was directed by veteran Jean-Christophe Averty, and that the program was aired by France 1.
So far I haven’t found a trace of the whereabouts of the source materials of this program.* It’s not impossible that Averty, as he did in earlier instances, used the contents of the concert for two Ray Charles specials, and that the remainder of the concert has also survived in the INA vaults (four days later this was the setlist of a concert in the UK).

1. Let The Good Times Roll
2. Georgia On My Mind
3. Oh What A Beautiful Morning
4. Busted
5. Just Because**
6. Some Enchanted Evening

*France 1 was privatized in the 1980s, which is probably the reason why the program can’t be found in the database of INA, the French public television and radio archive. Also see the comment to this post: it could be that this program was aired on October 26, 1984. ** In the video, in one of the funniest title corruptions ever, the tune is titled “Just A Bounce”.