Ray Charles Live In Copenhagen (1972)
Up till now we only knew an 87-seconds clip from Going Down Slow, but the Danish public TV website DR has suddenly brought the complete, unabridged, Tivoli concert recording of October 10, 1972 online. You can watch all of it here.
- Nothing Wrong (Ray Charles Orchestra) (Mike Conlon – ct; James ‘Heavy’ Clay – ts; Steve Turre – tb)
- Intro
- Hallelujah I Love Her So
- Georgia On My Mind (Andy Ennis – ft)
- You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Wanna Do It)
- Yesterday (Edgar Willis – b)
- Feel So Bad (Ralph Byrd – g; John Henderson – o)
- Going Down Slow (1st time)
- Going Down Slow (2nd time)
- Intro Raelettes
- Rock Steady (ft. Estella Yarbrough)
- I Can’t Stop Loving You
- Look What They Have Done To My Song, Ma
- Indian Love Call (ft. Susaye Greene)
- Rant
- Eleanor Rigby
- Introduction John Henderson
- Shake (with The Raelettes)
- Ray introducing Raelettes by name, in call and response improv; ft Mable John, Estella Yarbrough, Susaye Greene, Dorothy Berry, and Vernita Moss with a great sample of:
- Leave My Man Alone (partial; ft Vernita Moss)
- Introduction band
- So Soon (with John Henderson) + What’d I Say
- Outro
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| The band, announced by Ray as “The foundation of our group” takes a bow (video still). |
The concert went on in a very slow pace, had some very good music (specially #6, and – with a remarkable repetition – #8/#9), but also had a few awkward elements. The oddest incident was an incredibly rude rant (#15) where Ray made fun (well… kind of fun) of someone in the audience who only tried to answer one of his rhetoric questions. Ray’s extensive, bawdy introduction of The Raelettes (#19, leading to a great partial performance of #20) and the special intro of the band (#21; “I might be the tower […]”, but the band is “the foundation of this group”) both were unique.
The instrumental (#1) was recorded later for the album My Kind Of Jazz Part III (1975); in December ’72 another live performance of the tune was filmed in Tel Aviv.
The show was aired in Denmark on August 8, 1978 (or was this a corruption for 1973, as the new DR-page seems to imply?), under the title ‘The Genius koncert’.
Historic Films (file Dr-8) archived a 1 h 47 m copy dated 1 March (sic!) 1972. For a radio interview by Swedish national radio dated on or around 1 March 1972 (which may be a corruption for October 10 as well), listen here.
Personnel:
Musicians: Mike Conlon (ct), Tommy Cortez, Joe Mitchell, ?Tommy Turrentine?, Tony Farrell – trumpets; Glenn Childress, Al (Sanifu) Hall, Fred Murrell, Steve Turre – trombones; James Clay, Don Garcia – alto saxophones; Andy Ennis – tenor saxophone, flute; Fred Smith – tenor saxophone; Leroy Cooper – baritone saxophone, band leader; John Henderson – organ, piano; Ralph Byrd – guitar; Edgar Willis – bass; John Perrett – drums. The Raelettes: Vernita Moss, Mable John, Susaye Greene, Dorothy Berry, Estella Yarbrough.
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