I listened Ray Charles when I was a kid and I knew that it was great music back then. But about 4 years ago I heard “Hallelujah, I Just Love Her So” and I was completely blown away. It occurred to me recently that the music Ray made on Atlantic Records may be the most honest music he ever laid down; no one was telling him what to play, he was just doing his thing.
After listening to pretty much everything Ray ever recorded I started to put my pen to some work. I picked 20 of my favorite tunes, some hits and some lesser known songs, and I started arranging them for a small big band and 3 Raelettes. When I started telling people what I was doing I got the same reaction every time “Can I be in the band?”… so at least I’m not alone in my obsession.
The hardest part of putting the band together was finding the right singers. I’ve always loved the way Lech from the California Honeydrops sings and he was thrilled at the idea of doing a Ray-band. As for the Raelettes, I had just about every female singer west of Mississippi interested in singing. I ended up with 3 awesome ladies, Allegra Bandy, Rashida Calendening & Karen Fremont.
We’ll be kicking things off at Coda on Thursday, June 3rd at 9:30pm, tickets are $7.
The complete lineup is as follows:
Mike Irwin Johnson – Bass/Arrangements,
Lech Wierzynski – Lead Vocals,
Allegra Bandy – Vocals,
Rashida Calendening – Vocals,
Karen Fremont – Vocals,
Niel Levonius – Lead Trumpet,
Joel Behrman – Trumpet,
Scott Larson – Trombone,
Gabe Eaton – Alto Sax,
Rob Barics – Tenor Sax,
Marcus Stephens – Tenor Sax,
Fil Lorenz – Bari Sax,
Jay Standards – Piano,
Elizabeth Goodfellow – Drums
