by Scott Turner

Remembering Ray

Once again, the music industry lost one of its giants with the passing of Ray Charles. As the story goes, one of Ray's musicians, a sax player, was being interviewed on a local radio show and the host asked him why they referred to Ray as "The Genius"? The musician answered by saying, "If you took the mouthpiece from my sax and stomped on it until the reed was shredded to bits, and I replaced it in that condition and still played soulfully, well, that's genius, and that's Ray Charles." He went on to say that Ray can take any song from any genre of music and make it his own, and he's proven that many times over.

I first met Ray in 1958 when I was Tommy Sands' guitar player and writer. We were playing a date in St. Louis and on the way back to our hotel, Tommy noticed a sign on the front of a nightclub stating "Ray Charles...Appearing Tonight". Tommy asked the driver to stop and see if we could go in and see him. The driver replied that it's an all-black nightclub but he'd go and see. Tommy was a very hot act the time and the driver came back to the car and said, "Ray would love for all of you to come in" which we did and we ended up on stage jamming with Ray and his band, and the audience reacted very positively. At the time, Ray had his first top ten records "Hallelujah, I Love Her So" and Ray and Tommy sang the song together.

Later that night at the hotel about 3AM, there was a knock at my door and it was Tommy. He said, "I can't get to sleep. We've got to write a Ray Charles style song". We started two of them that night, finished them in California, and they turned out to be two of Tommy's best performances, record-wise. The songs were titled "Is It Ever Gonna Happen" and "I Ain't Gettin' Rid of You".

I saw Ray many more times at awards banquets and other functions over the years, and was always amazed how he recognized me by the sound of my voice, as he did with many others.

Finally around 1969, I knew I was going to see Ray at a studio function and brought along a copy of the record Ray inspired some 11 years ago, and he actually remembered the night in St. Louis. Ray called me at Liberty Records the next day and was very complimentary about the two songs. He said, "You boys got some soul that night" and I said, "Yes, from you!!"

Thank goodness Ray left us many musical memories and the best part is that there are still some new cuts that will be coming out.