the of mirror eye

* ray charles: come rain or shine (9 mb) | georgia on my mind (9.5 mb) | what’d i say (8.5 mb)
from oct 22, 1966 : palais des sport : paris, france

i’ve been meaning to check out the new movie ray, starring jaimie foxx. although they left out some of his “less than savory” traits, i’ve heard it’s an excellent depiction of ray charles and his life. but i just haven’t had time yet. so i decided to post some tracks instead.

now, if you need an introduction to ray charles, than you’re in need of more help than i can provide. ray is an amazing performer who transcends all boundaries. his music can loosely be classified as ’soul’. but that’s way too limiting for ray. he mixed together everything from rock to pop to country, all the while maintaining his own sound. but he didn’t just break musical boundaries, he also broke recording industry boundaries by using his own recording studios, music labels and publishing contracts. he was also the first major label artist to broker a deal where the artist owned his own master recordings.

so, take a listen to these rave-ups and just try and imagine a world without brother ray.

—–+—–

this past saturday night, i went to the intuit gallery for the last show of their yearly intuitive music series. it was my first time at the gallery and it’s pretty damn cool. i’ll definitely have to go back when there’s more time for me to peruse the art. the headlining act for tonight was the singing psychic, aka frances baskerville. apparently, she suffered a near death experience with a logging truck and from then on, was able to tune into her psychic abilities. her main gig is as a private investigator that specializes in finding missing children. the singing psychic gig is what she does for fun. it works like this - an audience member will ask her a question like “what’s my love outlook for 2005?” and the singing psychic will then sing a response to it. i don’t know. i wasn’t too into it, personally. the whole act was kinda disappointing.

the first act on the other hand, brute force , was incredible. he sang great, quirky pop songs. he seemed like a total goof, which was really cool. apparently he’s pretty famous, even appearing in a scene in ghostbusters! and as an extra special treat, daughter of force (best. name. ever!) was also in attendance and joined brute force on stage for a couple of songs. and to end his set, there was an anti-war/pro-rabbit audience sing-a-long.

p.s. brute force is pictured on the right with his automatic smile maker. during the concert he went on for quite awhile about laughter and smiling and how those actions result in tired cheek syndrome (TCS), so he developed the automatic smiler so that people wouldn’t get TCS! too funny.