The Look Of Love
The Ray Charles Singers
Musical Arrangements by Ray Charles
They did. But on the bus back to town, they were a disgruntled group of girls. All that preparation and you can't even see their faces!
Take Me Along
The Look Of Love
Summertime Sweethearts
Blame It On Me
This Heart (Paris)
I Can See It Now
Windy
Walkin' Lonely
Henry, Sweet Henry
Quiz Me
Watch What Happens
Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye
Originated and Produced by Loren Becker and Robert Byrne
Art Director: Daniel Pezza
Recording and Mastering Engineer: George Piros
Command RS 926 SD
1968
From inside the (gatefold) cover: The threads that tie our lives together often follow strange and devious paths. Sometimes we see these threads knitting things together. Sometimes we don't even realize that the fateful is at work.
Two of the threads in Ray Charles' life come into focus in this album. One of them, he's been watching for a long time. The other – well, that was just one of those things.
The thread that he's been watching goes back to the days when Ray was a 17-year-old college student in Chicago. One of his best friends at col- lege was another 17-year-old named Norman Luboff. Both of these 17-year-olds went on to become leaders of two of the finest contemporary choral groups. Despite their professional rivalry, they remained close friends. When they married and had children, their children became friends.
The Luboffs had two children – a son, Peter, and a daughter, Tina. There were three Charles children – Michael, John and Wendy. A couple of summers ago, Mike Charles and Peter Luboff began writing songs together. They were written specifically for a trio made up of Peter and Tina Luboff and Wendy Charles.
The two fathers followed their efforts with interest but from a discreet distance ("Dad stays out," as Ray Charles says). The trio performed a few times but eventually it broke up. Then, for the first time, Ray Charles stepped in. Since the trio, which was the reason for the songs, no longer existed, would it be all right, he asked, if he recorded some of the songs?
Permission was granted by Peter Luboff and Michael Charles. And so the thread that first appeared in Ray Charles' life so many years ago is being woven into a new pattern – the joining of two great musical families in the recording debut of the team of Charles and Luboff.
The other thread dates back to a Broadway musical that Bob Merrill wrote in 1959. It was a musical version of Eugene O'Neill's play, Ah, Wilderness, and it was called Take Me Along. In the show, the title song was sung by Walter Pidgeon and Jackie Gleason in a gentle, easy, softshoe style. The Ray Charles Singers did it then on television on the Perry Como Show, following the general pattern of the Walter Pidgeon – Jackie Gleason version.
Time passed and the song fell into that limbo of good songs that nobody sings anymore. Then someone at United Airlines with a keen ear for the message inherent in the lyric picked it up as the basis for an advertising campaign. The first time Ray Charles heard the United Airlines commercial version of Take Me Along, he realized that he had overlooked the lively potential of the song when he had first done it in 1959. Now he could hear it as a totally different kind of song for his Singers.
He not only heard it – he started writing an arrangement. He wrote the arrangement that night, had the Singers in the studio the next day and the resultant record, released as a single, became an overnight hit. (You'll notice that, like most "over- night" hits, it took eight years to reach fruition).
Needless to say, United Airlines was pleased that their commercial had inspired a hit record. United was so pleased that they put a plane at Ray Charles' disposal for the cover photo of this album.
It happened on a day when the Singers were recording some of the songs in this collection. They were all gathered in the studio – Lillian Clark, Lois Winter, June Magruder, Mary Sue Berry, Elise Bretton, Peggy Powers, Linda Whit- ney, Louise Stuart on the left channel, Steve Steck, Jerry Duane, Alan Sokoloff, Jerome Graff, Robert Hartman, William Ruthenberg, Chuck Magruder, Robert Eaton, Eugene Steck, Art Lang and William Elliott on the right channel.
When the recording session was finished, several of them had other assignments to go to but those who were free climbed into a bus and trundled out to John F. Kennedy International Airport. There the girls got dressed, carefully combed their hair, touched up their make-up and went out to join the boys at the plane. They lined up facing the waiting photographer.
"Turn around," the photographer told them. "Put your hands your in the air and wave to the boys."
Command RS 926 SD
1968
From inside the (gatefold) cover: The threads that tie our lives together often follow strange and devious paths. Sometimes we see these threads knitting things together. Sometimes we don't even realize that the fateful is at work.
Two of the threads in Ray Charles' life come into focus in this album. One of them, he's been watching for a long time. The other – well, that was just one of those things.
The thread that he's been watching goes back to the days when Ray was a 17-year-old college student in Chicago. One of his best friends at col- lege was another 17-year-old named Norman Luboff. Both of these 17-year-olds went on to become leaders of two of the finest contemporary choral groups. Despite their professional rivalry, they remained close friends. When they married and had children, their children became friends.
The Luboffs had two children – a son, Peter, and a daughter, Tina. There were three Charles children – Michael, John and Wendy. A couple of summers ago, Mike Charles and Peter Luboff began writing songs together. They were written specifically for a trio made up of Peter and Tina Luboff and Wendy Charles.
The two fathers followed their efforts with interest but from a discreet distance ("Dad stays out," as Ray Charles says). The trio performed a few times but eventually it broke up. Then, for the first time, Ray Charles stepped in. Since the trio, which was the reason for the songs, no longer existed, would it be all right, he asked, if he recorded some of the songs?
Permission was granted by Peter Luboff and Michael Charles. And so the thread that first appeared in Ray Charles' life so many years ago is being woven into a new pattern – the joining of two great musical families in the recording debut of the team of Charles and Luboff.
The other thread dates back to a Broadway musical that Bob Merrill wrote in 1959. It was a musical version of Eugene O'Neill's play, Ah, Wilderness, and it was called Take Me Along. In the show, the title song was sung by Walter Pidgeon and Jackie Gleason in a gentle, easy, softshoe style. The Ray Charles Singers did it then on television on the Perry Como Show, following the general pattern of the Walter Pidgeon – Jackie Gleason version.
Time passed and the song fell into that limbo of good songs that nobody sings anymore. Then someone at United Airlines with a keen ear for the message inherent in the lyric picked it up as the basis for an advertising campaign. The first time Ray Charles heard the United Airlines commercial version of Take Me Along, he realized that he had overlooked the lively potential of the song when he had first done it in 1959. Now he could hear it as a totally different kind of song for his Singers.
He not only heard it – he started writing an arrangement. He wrote the arrangement that night, had the Singers in the studio the next day and the resultant record, released as a single, became an overnight hit. (You'll notice that, like most "over- night" hits, it took eight years to reach fruition).
Needless to say, United Airlines was pleased that their commercial had inspired a hit record. United was so pleased that they put a plane at Ray Charles' disposal for the cover photo of this album.
It happened on a day when the Singers were recording some of the songs in this collection. They were all gathered in the studio – Lillian Clark, Lois Winter, June Magruder, Mary Sue Berry, Elise Bretton, Peggy Powers, Linda Whit- ney, Louise Stuart on the left channel, Steve Steck, Jerry Duane, Alan Sokoloff, Jerome Graff, Robert Hartman, William Ruthenberg, Chuck Magruder, Robert Eaton, Eugene Steck, Art Lang and William Elliott on the right channel.
When the recording session was finished, several of them had other assignments to go to but those who were free climbed into a bus and trundled out to John F. Kennedy International Airport. There the girls got dressed, carefully combed their hair, touched up their make-up and went out to join the boys at the plane. They lined up facing the waiting photographer.
"Turn around," the photographer told them. "Put your hands your in the air and wave to the boys."
They did. But on the bus back to town, they were a disgruntled group of girls. All that preparation and you can't even see their faces!
Take Me Along
The Look Of Love
Summertime Sweethearts
Blame It On Me
This Heart (Paris)
I Can See It Now
Windy
Walkin' Lonely
Henry, Sweet Henry
Quiz Me
Watch What Happens
Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye
I think they made a bunch of albums. Unless I am thinking of the Ray Coniff singers. they are the same sort of thing.
ReplyDelete