[Slowhand] "Genius - A Night For Ray Charles"

[Art Arias]

I had the pleasure of attending the Ray Charles
tribute concert here in Los Angeles last night and
although this message has no EC content other than
he's covered Ray's tunes previously live and on
record, a couple of Eric's band mate's from this years
tour were onboard.  This concert is scheduled to air
on Oct. 22 by the CBS network and lasted just under 2
hours without a snag other than one retake of Billy
Prestons performance because his microphone failed
halfway thru his song. It started off with the events
producer Ken Ehrlich talking to the audience about Ray
Charles which leads into about a 10 minute extended
preview of the upcoming movie "Ray", which stars the
evenings host, Jamie Foxx, and does a stunning job of
capturing all of Ray Charles' mannerisms and speech
patterns. Jamie Foxx then comes out to thank everyone
for coming and introduces Elton John, David "Fathead"
Newman & Mary J. Blige for a great version of "(Night
Time) Is The Right Time". Mr. Foxx then talks about
Ray's country roots and intoduces Kenny Chesney who
sings "You Don't Know Me". Actor Morgan Freeman is
then intoduced to a very responsive crowd who has the
humble job of introducing Stevie Wonder who plays
"I've Got A Woman" and is followed by Norah Jones
version of "Drown In My Own Tears". Throughout the
evening and between artists sets they show brief
scenes of the extended preview we all saw before the
event started and as Jamie Fox is readying the crowd
for the next one, Tom Cruise sneaks up behind him and
takes over to intoduce a scene of Ray's refusal to
sing in Georgia because of racial tensions which then
lead into Usher's performance of "Georgia On My Mind".
Next we see actor Bruce Willis on stage next to B.B.
King and Billy Preston and intoduces their version of
"Hard Times", which has Mr. Willis playing harmonica
along with B.B. & Billy.  Elton John comes back again
to sing "Born To Lose" and is followed by the man who
stole the show, Rev. Al Green who has the entire crowd
up and singing along with him on "What'd I Say". Next,
It's back to his country roots with Rebe McEntire
singing "I Can't Stop Loving You" followed by Billy
Preston's take of "Unchain My Heart". After that, we
hear from a young English lad who I'd never heard of
before who's name is Jamie Cullum and plays on piano a
nice version of "Hallelujah I Love Her So". The
following performance and evenings final one was a
stunning version of "Come Rain or Come Shine"
performed with style and grace by Mary J. Blige. The
show ends with Ray on screen performing "America The
Beautiful" as the camera pan the audience singing
along. I've already mentioned Billy Preston was part
of the show, and the other band member who was onstage
throughout the event was Nathan East who was part of
the house band that consisted of people who had all
played with Ray at some time during his carreer and
were all using Rays original music scores for the
evenings song sets. The house band consisted of Ricky
Minor-Music Director, George Bohanon-Trombone, Ron
Brown-Sax, Paulinho Da Costa-Percussion, David
Delhomme-Keyboards, George Harper-Sax, Al Jackson-Sax,
Paul Jackson Jr.-Guitar, Jeff Kaye-Trumpet, Harry
Kim-Trumpet, Wayne Linsey-Keyboards, John
Roberts-Drums, Maurice Spears-Trombone, David
Stout-Trombone, Dave Trigg-Trumpet, Fred
Wesley-Trombone, Gary Winters-Trumpet & Ricky
Woodard-Sax. Backing Vocals provided by Stephanie
Alexander, Puff Johnson & Valerie Pinkston. This show
would have made for a perfect vehicle for Eric's
involvement for a song contribution but alas he's
taking a well deserved break after traveling most of
the world on his last tour and hopefully he's secluded
himself away to concentrate of writing some new
material for his next release. 


		
_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com