[lbo-talk] Re: Ray Charles RIP

Dennis Perrin dperrin at comcast.net
Sat Jun 12 14:29:04 PDT 2004



> Looking at a google search on Ray Charles I see French, Spanish,
> German tributes. I am sure there are plenty of Japanese and Russian
> ones too. At the top it says 5,230,000 for Ray Charles.
>
> Doing the same for the name, Ronald Reagan gets 2,020,000. I see no
> foreign language sites.
>
> That kind of says it all. Better than 2:1, for Ray. So Roll over
> Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news...
>
> CG

So it does. And even though Charles played the '84 GOP convention (I believe he was a Repub), he still rules in my book. Dunno why he'd side with those reactionaries, & I don't care. His music & spirit transcends earthly political bias & stupidity.

I remember him hosting SNL in 1977. He was in several sketches, and obviously had to memorize his lines (when Stevie Wonder hosted in the early 80s, I believe he had a hidden earphone prompting him). He was terrific, mixing his music with that staff's comedy (The Raelettes backed him up). He even outdid Michael O'Donoghue, who performed w/Charles a cheap joke about blindness. He took and made fine whatever they threw at him. The affection on the faces of that cast at the end of the show told the story.

DP



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list