Larry Gelman

            On Saturday morning I memorized the first verse of L'anguille (The Eel) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the fourth verse of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo). There are only two verses left to learn. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since April 17. 

            I played my Martin acoustic for song practice for the last of two sessions and it went out of tune during every song. Tomorrow I begin a four session stretch of playing my electrics. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills. Only three bags of green grapes were firm enough. I bought two bags of expensive cherries, some bananas, a pack of two small T-bone steaks, a pack of chicken drumsticks, some mouthwash, a box of saltines, honey, olive oil, natural peanut butter, a box of Ziploc sandwich bags, high acid vinegar, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, and two bags of Miss Vickie’s chips. My total was $177.32 and I said, “Whoa!” I forgot to buy pie, cinnamon-raisin bread, and kitchen bags. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos at 14:40. I had saltines with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar with a glass of iced tea. 

            I took a siesta and got up at 17:00. By the time I was ready to go it was too late for a short bike ride. 

            I walked over to the LCBO and bought a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I weighed 89.35 kilos at 17:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:24. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity the rest of the Christian and the Lions concert at Fat Albert’s with Brian Haddon as the only Lion. The tape only captured the end of my song “Seven Shades of Blues”. I started on the first tape of my sessions at Mike’s recording studio in Peter Fruchter’s garage. The first part of side 1 is just a drum track for “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” and “Seven Shades of Blues”. Later it’s Mike’s drums and my guitar for “Seven Shades of Blues” with the vocals very faint. Tomorrow I’ll do side 2. 

            My left ear felt plugged so I tried to flush it but nothing came out. In fact it felt more plugged with water so I had to flush it again. I’m seeing my doctor soon for my annual physical and I’ll get him to flush it. 

            I grilled eight souvlaki and cut up two of them to put on a multigrain sandwich bread slice pizza with cherry tomato sauce, tomato pesto, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 5, episode 24 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon is in the audience. Carol asks him if they’ll be sending women into space. He answers, “If they qualify”. 

            One of the ushers is leaving and wants a goodbye kiss from Carol. She asks why he’s leaving and he says he needs to get a real job. 

            This is the final show of the season and they decided to do one continuous story. It’s a parody of the 1945 film The Dolly Sisters starring Betty Grable and June Haver, based on the real story of twin sisters Jenny and Rose Dolly who were vaudeville superstars from around 1910 to 1925. Our story begins in 1912 in New York City. At the Café Budapest the crowd is impatient for the show and the proprietor Miklos is a nervous wreck. The opening act the Bobty Twins just quit. But by coincidence the Doily twins walk in to get out of the cold. They just arrived from Hungary and are looking for work. They expected at best to be waiting tables but they are put onto the stage. They improvise a song about the origin of Budapest and they are a big hit. Harry Handsome the MC wants them to be his backup singers. Bernie the promoter says nobody wants trios anymore and so they’ll have to be a duo. Jenny can’t leave Rose and so Harry walks. The twins become stars and don’t see Harry for years until they drop into a piano bar where he is playing. Jenny puts up the money for Harry to have a big show. Jenny and Harry decide to get married but WWI has just begun and so Harry goes off to fight. He takes his piano into the trenches. The Doily Sisters are entertaining the troops and just happen to visit Harry’s trench. Harry gets a chance to lead the charge and be a hero but his superiors ask Jenny and Rose to lead the charge and they win the war. Rose marries Bernie and Jenny develops a gambling problem (in real life Jenny won millions from gambling). Jenny has a car accident and gets amnesia. Harry has finally become a successful nightclub performer. The club is missing a waitress and Jenny happens to walk in where she’s hired even though she can’t remember what’s a waitress. She hears Harry singing his song and it all comes back to her. Harry asks her to marry him. Suddenly Rose is also a waitress there and we hear that Bernie left her. Jenny asks Harry to marry both of them. As usual the season finale ends with the Charwoman singing the extended theme song and then walking out of the theatre. 

            Miklos was played by Larry Gelman, who played Dr. Bernie Tupperman on The Bob Newhart Show. He played Vinnie on the Odd Couple. He was nominated for an Emmy for his guest role on Barney Miller. He co-starred in the 1976 erotic adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. He co-starred in Chatterbox (about a talking vagina).

May 10, 1996: I busked on Queen between the Horseshoe and the Rivoli

Thirty years ago today 

            On Friday I probably posed somewhere and then in the evening performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron. After that I likely busked on Queen Street between the Horseshoe and The Rivoli.

Eydie Gormé

            On Friday morning I sang along with L'anguille (The Eel) by Boris Vian but the YouTube file wasn’t exactly the same as the text I have. I copied down the differences in the YouTube auto generated transcript. I actually have two extra verses for which there’s no audio online. I’ll start trying to memorize the song tomorrow. 

            I memorized the third verse of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo). That’s half the song. 

            I weighed 88.4 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since April 17.

            I played my Martin acoustic for song practice and it went out of tune during every song. 

            Around midday I painted the bottom half of the bathroom wire rack. Next I need to do some touch-ups while it’s still upside down and after it dries I’ll turn it upright and finished the touch-ups before mounting it on the wall. Tuesday is my next free day but I think I’ll be shopping for birthday candy for my daughter that day. I’ll have it mounted sometime in the next couple of weeks. 

            I weighed 89.55 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 89.15 kilos at 18:05. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:26. 

            I recorded from cassette through audio interface to Audacity and then exported to my hard drive the first Christian and the Lions concert featuring me on guitar and Brian Haddon on recorder and backup vocals. The previous Christian and the Lions band had a core of Tom Smarda on Stratocaster and Steve Lowe on acoustic guitar with me only singing. There’s still one more song from that concert on the flip side of the tape. I’ll digitize that tomorrow. While recording, I lost the waveform after the first song, then during “The Next State of Grace” and during “Me and Gravity” and so I had to start each song over once the interface was blinking green again. 

            I had a potato with gravy and half a pork tenderloin while watching season 5, episode 21 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks Carol who she would like to be stranded on a desert island with. She asks, “You mean besides my husband?” She says, since Burt Reynolds answered that question with “Carol Burnett” I might as well be with someone who wants me. She adds “Peter Ustinov” and “someone who can cook”. 

            Another person asks who was her favourite silent film actress. She says she hasn’t seen many silent films but she’d read that Mabel Normand was a great comedian. 

            The first skit is a re-enactment of one from season 3, episode 11. Carol has a bad cold but Roger has poker night at their place. She complains that every time his friends come over it takes her a week to clean up after them. The men are inconsiderate and she freaks out. The only thing different is that Tim Conway gets ketchup on Carol’s dress. 

            Eydie Gormé sings the 1964 song “A House is Not a Home” by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

            The next skit has Harvey playing a cop named Mullins at night in a park waiting for his new partner on a special assignment. The rookie Vergil Frisby arrives. He wants Mullins to prove his identity first. Vergil goes into the bushes to change while Mullins changes in the open. There have been several muggings of couples in the park followed by sexual assaults of the women. Vergil is cross dressed as a female (Tim’s mannerisms in drag crack Harvey and himself up). There’s a piece of false eyelash on Tim’s cheek through the whole skit. They have to behave as if they are intimate so Mullins has his arm around Vergil. Vergil starts to behave like they are a real couple. Lyle comes as the mugger and knows they are cops. He ties them to the bench with their own handcuffs. 

            There’s a parody of the James Bond film Dr. No with Tim as James Blonde and Harvey as Dr. Nose. There is an enemy agent disguised as a lamp in James’s apartment. James dials B-A-N-G on the phone and then points the phone to kill him. He used “Dial a Bullet”. “C” comes to tell him his mission and gives him a finger gun. James accidentally shoots “C” with it. Carol plays Nose’s agent Passion Plenty who comes to seduce him so he won’t go after Nose. James and Passion have a kiss-off to see who can land the most kisses on the other. James wins. James descends to Nose’s lab on a rope ladder from a helicopter. Vickie plays Nose’s moll. James tries to defeat her with a kiss but she’s wearing plastic lips. James is tied up with a laser slowly rising towards him. Passion arrives because she has fallen in love with James as a result of his kisses. She saves him from the laser. Nose still has his nose gun but Passion pretends she’s about to kiss him, bends his nose into his ear and then makes him sneeze with pepper to blow his brains out. James accidentally shoots Passion and himself with his finger gun.

            The final segment is an operetta. Carol plays six year old Suzie on her birthday but no one has acknowledged her birthday because they are absorbed by the one week old baby boy who is now in the family. She thinks the infant is ugly but all the adults parade before him and call him an angel. Aunt Bubbles played by Eydie arrives to praise the baby. Suzy decides to run away but first chastises everyone for forgetting her birthday. Her mother says they didn’t forget and that her baby brother is their gift to her. Thinking they mean that literally Suzy gives he baby to Bubbles. Her aunt tells her that the baby looks like her. Suzy decides to keep the baby after all. 

            After Eydie signs the guest book Carol walks away without kissing her, which is the first time I’ve seen her do that. After kissing Tim though she comes back to kiss Eydie. 

            Eydie Gormé sang with big bands right after high school. She starred in the Spanish language radio program Cita con Eydie (A Date with Eydie). She had a hit with “Blame it on the Bossa Nova” in 1963, which was nominated for a Grammy. She joined the cast of The Tonight Show for 287 episodes. She met Steve Lawrence there and they got married. They were together for 56 years until she died. They won a Grammy together for the title song from their album We Got Us. They starred together in the Broadway musical The Golden Rainbow. They won an Emmy for their special Our Love is Here to Stay. They recorded a cover of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”. She won a Grammy for “If He Walked Into My Life”. She was more internationally famous for her Spanish language records. She was Neil Sedaka’s first cousin. She went to high school with Stanley Kubrick.

May 9, 1996: I posed for artists somewhere

Thirty years ago today 

            On Thursday I probably worked but I have no record for which school or art group.

Ken and Mitzie Welch

            On Thursday morning I searched for the next Boris Vian song to learn in my 1954 list. He wrote the lyrics for twenty songs that appear in a play about a famous criminal gang called La band à Bonnot. I searched the first seven songs but they’re not available online. The eighth song, L'anguille (The Eel) does have a YouTube file with Magali Noel singing the song and I already have the French lyrics and the first draft of my translation. So tomorrow I’ll start learning that one. 

            I memorized the second verse of the 1972 Gainsbourg song “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo). There are four more verses to learn. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it stayed in tune the whole time. Tomorrow I begin a two session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic and I predict it won’t stay in tune. 

            I was behind on my journal so I worked on getting caught up. 

            I weighed 89.55 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. I could only find three bags of firm grapes so I bought those. I also got two packs of raspberries, some bananas, a loaf of multigrain sandwich bread, a box of spoon sized shredded wheat, and a jar of mild salsa. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos 18:40. 

            I worked on getting caught up in my journal and was still a bit behind by suppertime. 

            I had a potato with gravy, and half a pork tenderloin while watching season 5, episode 20 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            Carol brings out Burt Reynolds during the audience warmup. Someone asks how many movies he’s made. He says he’s made about two that he likes. Deliverance is about to come out. 

            Someone asks how he got started and he says he was a stuntman. 

            They do a bunch of short parodies of TV commercials from that time. A flight attendant says, “Hi I’m Helen, fly me to Miami”; another says “I’m Elaine, fly me to New York”, then Harvey in drag says, “I’m Bruce, fly me anywhere”. 

            Burt Reynolds makes his TV singing debut with “As Time Goes By” by Herman Upfeld from 1931. He interacts with some female dancers and “accidentally” pulls off one of their wigs. He leans to kiss another and her settee collapses. He pretends to play piano at the top of a stairs and knocks it off the platform, causing the woman who is leaning on it to fall. She gets up and he runs to her arms but misses and falls down the stairs and onto a table, breaking it. He finishes the song and then trips as he’s leaving the stage. 

            Harvey does a parody of a Bromo seltzer commercial. He wants relief from a bad hangover but has such a hard time opening the bottle and pouring it that he decides to get relief from more booze.

            Vickie does a parody of a Scope mouthwash commercial. She practices in front of the mirror to tell her karate instructor that he has bad breath. The teacher says he uses Scoop too but then he splashes it on his chest, exhales and knocks her out. 

            In a George and Zelda sketch the couple is camping in the remote wilderness. Zelda is constantly complaining. She goes into the tent and George says he can’t take it anymore. He grabs a rifle and fires into the tent. Zelda emerges unscathed and he’s relieved. Then a bear comes out from the bushes and grabs Zelda but she punches it in the stomach. George begs the bear to kill him while Zelda nags. The bear shakes its head, gives George a sympathetic pat and then walks away. George points the gun at Zelda but she grabs it and bends it over her knee. 

            In a parody of a Nyquil commercial Nanette Fabray introduces Harvey to Night Night. He goes right to sleep and then her boyfriend emerges with champagne. 

            Nanette Fabray sings “The World is a Concerto” by Ken and Mitzie Welch from the 1973 album Barbara Streisand and Other Musical Instruments. The dancers do a lot of cultural appropriation to represent music of different parts of the world, like Scotland, Japan, Spain, and India. Nanette also sings with American sign language. 

            Carol plays an ordinary housewife doing a natural commercial for Cool Power laundry soap. Suddenly she becomes exaggeratedly theatrical and has to be dragged away. 

            Transcontinental Airlines is the only one with a piano bar in its coach lounge. Burt decides to play it but the other passengers throw him out of the plane. 

            Carol plays a college librarian shushing students who are trying to romantically connect. She overhears them saying that if anybody asked her for a date she’d probably faint and it must be awful not having anybody. The students leave and Carol sings a song about various relationships that led her to meeting “Al”. I posted the lyrics to the first two verses but there are no matches. The second verse talks about almost marrying a practicing atheist from the Peace Corps who’s now on acid in a Canadian hotel.

            There is a parody of The Scarlet Pimpernel called The Lavender Pimpernel. The Duke played by Harvey is about to marry Gabrielle Pomme de Terre played by Carol and it will make him the most powerful duke in France. His aide de camp Charles de Gaye is an over the top effeminate man played by Burt but who is secretly the very masculine hero the Lavender Pimpernel who plans to stop the wedding and save France. His only change between identities is that he removes a fake beauty mark from his cheek to become the hero and nobody can recognize him. Gabrielle meets de Gaye and tells him he’s what’s wrong with France. Later the Pimpernel smashes through Gabrielle’s bedroom window. She and her handmaiden played by Nanette say “The Lavender Pimpernel!” He says, “You’ve heard of me?” They say no. Later the Pimpernel stops the wedding and duels with the Duke. While he’s holding out his sword three guards impale themselves on it and so he sword fights the duke with the end of the sword that’s sticking out from the guards. He kills the duke. Now that France is free he and Gabrielle can smash through the door instead of the window. 

            The last musical number is derived from the completion of the railroad that united east and west in the US. Easterners join with westerners in a blending of their cultures. 

            Ken and Mitzie Welch made up a husband and wife song writing team. Ken wrote comedy material for Carol Burnett for her early auditions such as for Garry Moore. He accompanied Carol on piano and wrote songs for her nightclub act. He wrote for the Garry Moore Show and wrote Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall. Songs on the Carol Burnett Show that were sung during musical numbers that did not use hit songs were probably written by them. The “Al” song that Carol sang was not credited but I suspect they wrote it. Also popular songs were given additional or alternative lyrics in order to fit a theme and this team was likely behind it. They worked on the Carol Burnett Show from 1971 to 1978. They wrote the original songs for the TV special Barbara Streisand and Other Musical Instruments. Mitzi co-wrote an Olivia Newton John TV special and the Star Wars Holiday Special. They shared 19 Emmy nominations and each won 5.

May 8, 1996: Brian Haddon and I featured at Fat Albert's as Christian and the Lions

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday Brian Haddon and I busked in the afternoon while rehearsing for our feature that night at Fat Albert’s. We went to the Philosopher’s Walk and sat on a bench beside the Royal Conservatory of Music. We made a bit of money but not much. 

            That night at Fat Albert’s with me on acoustic guitar and vocals and Brian on recorder we performed my songs “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” and “Megaphor”. Then I broke a string and Brian just entertained the audience with his recorder while I took quite a while to change it and tune up. I commented that they make a lot of noise at the Royal Conservatory and they’re gonna get themselves evicted. We then performed my songs “The Next State of Grace” and “Me and Gravity” at the end of which I collapsed onstage as part of the show.

Ray Charles

            On Wednesday morning I finally succeeded in confirming my identity to Facebook so I could post “Ballad of a Dealer”, my translation of “Ballade de la chnoufe” by Boris Vian on my Boris Vian page. I’d spent about three and a half hours over the last two days trying and failing to figure out how to prove who I am when I’ve had the page for more than ten years. Finally today I was able to do it through Facebook on my phone and all I needed to do was fill in a security code that they sent to my phone. So I posted “Ballad of a Dealer” on the Boris Vian page and on my personal Facebook page. 

            I posted “Black Dress Shoes and Funeral Parlours”, my translation of “Chaussures noires et pompes funèbres” by Serge Gainsbourg on Facebook. I memorized the first verse of the 1972 Gainsbourg song “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo). 

            I weighed 88.65 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune about half the time. 

            Around midday I painted the top half of the wire rack in my bathroom with “Blue Bliss”. On Friday I’ll do the bottom. On Tuesday if it doesn’t need touch-ups I’ll mount it on the eastern wall under the shelves and over the toilet. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back to buy grapes but they were all too soft. I walked across the street to Metro where I found one bag of firm red grapes and another of green. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos at 18:35, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since April 15. 

            I was behind on my journal and still wasn’t caught up by suppertime. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, two sliced honey garlic sausages, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 5, episode 17 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            In the first skit Harvey and Vicki play a husband and wife with a tomboy daughter named Charlotte, played by Carol, who prefers being called Charlie. The mother complains that she wants her daughter back and so the father makes Charlie put on a dress, some high heels and a bow in her hair. Her friend Frankie, played by Tim Conway, comes to visit. The father makes the kids dance but they start liking it and so he makes them stop. Frankie leaves and Charlie walks him home. She tells her father she’s going to sleep over. 

            Ray Charles sings his own version of the 1970 song “Look What They Done To My Song Ma” by Melanie Safka. Ray of course throws in a lot of his own talking lyrics in between lines. 

            Harvey plays a billboard hanger named Brannigan and Tim Conway plays his first day apprentice Vergil who comes with a note from his mommy that says to make sure he gets his milk and has a nap after lunch. They have to go up on a suspended scaffold that they elevate by pulling on ropes on each end but Vergil is afraid of heights. Finally Brannigan gets Vergil to go up but once they are very high he looks down and freaks out and almost flips the scaffold. Brannigan decides to have lunch before they start. Vergil doesn’t want to look down so when he tries to pour hot soup from his thermos to his cup it goes in his lap. Brannigan tosses him an orange but Vergil falls off while reaching for it and has to climb back up. Vergil puts his hand in the bucket of glue. There’s a pigeon on the scaffold and Brannigan tells Vergil to get rid of it but it sticks to his gluey hand and he can’t throw it off. Brannigan’s hat blows off and he lowers the scaffold to get it, leaving Vergil clinging to the wall. 

            They do a movie called Sinful Woman. Carol plays Gladys, a woman on death row who will be frying in the electric chair in the next few minutes. Tim plays a priest there to comfort her. She tells him her story. She was a saloon girl in a sleezy bar. Ronald Worthington the broken hearted millionaire comes in looking for the cheapest, homeliest, most pathetic dame in the joint. He offers to buy Gladys a drink. She tells him she was worse off than those born on the other side of the tracks. She was born on the tracks and her mother was run over by a train just after giving birth. He asks her to marry him and she agrees. But his family has the marriage annulled and Ronald marries a debutante named Cynthia. Gladys comes to the door with their baby son. She threatens to expose Ronald but when she learns he is running for governor she decides not to hurt his chances. Cynthia says the child would be better off with them. Gladys says, “Get your own child” but that won’t happen because it’s a loveless marriage. There is a tug of war and the baby stretches several centimeters. Gladys makes the sacrifice and walks away alone. Years later Gladys is working as a maid and goes back to the mansion, not quite remembering it. She sees Ronald’s portrait and remembers but learns that Ronald is dead and their son Ronald Jr. is now an adult, identical to Ronald. She doesn’t reveal who she is but behaves maternally towards Ronald Jr. Ronald is a successful DA who wants to be governor like his father. Gladys’s old boss at the saloon comes to try to blackmail her. She pushes him away and he pulls a gun. She struggles with him and he is shot and so she goes on trial for murder. Ronald is the prosecutor. She feels a duty as his mother to sacrifice herself for his success and so she urges him get the biggest conviction possible, which is the death sentence, in order to advance his career, and so he does. She finishes her story and finds the priest asleep. They come for Gladys for that final walk when now Governor Ronald Worthington comes to see her. He says he now knows that she’s his mother and even though he has the power of pardon he just gives her a bouquet to carry with her to the chair and says, “Happy Mothers Day”. 

            In the final segment, Carol’s Charwoman character comes to clean up the set of a Ray Charles performance. She begins to imagine hearing the music and then dancers appear beside her. They dance to the right and there is Ray at the piano. He sings, “It started with the 12 bar down home straight ahead blues… It turned into Gospel, it turned into Soul, it turned into Dixie, Jazz, and Rock and Roll... It turned into pop. It kept on turnin and it just won’t stop.” He repeats the beginning while Carol sings a bit of “Kansas City” by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, then she dances a bit with the dancers. Ray sings “Old Folks at Home (Way Down Upon the Swanee River)” by Stephen Foster from 1851. Then he sings the 1939 song “You Are My Sunshine” by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell (That’s the first song I remember knowing how to sing when I was small). Then the 1914 song “St. Louis Blues” by W.C. Handy. Then Carol joins him on “Cryin Time” from 1964 by Buck Owens. Then Ray sings the 1930 song “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrel. Then Carol keeps singing that while Ray sings “Yesterday” by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Carol sings bits of “Blues in the Night” by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer and “God Bless the Child” by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr from 1941. Then they sing “Hallelujah I Love Her So” by Ray Charles from 1955. He finishes with the song he started. 

            Ray Charles developed glaucoma at the age of 5 and was completely blind by the time he turned 7. He studied music at the State School for Deaf and Blind Children, learning to play multiple instruments but with special talent for piano. He learned to read and write music with braille. He lost his virginity at the age of 12. He joined a country band called the Florida Playboys when he was 16. He joined the Lowell Fulson Band and they signed to Atlantic Records. His first hit was “Confession Blues” in 1949. In 1951 he had a #5 hit with “Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand”. “Mess Around”, “I Got a Woman” and “What’d I Say” followed. “What’d I say was his first top ten hit on the pop charts. Doing soulful versions of country songs was something no black performer had done before and it made him even more popular. He hired The Cookies as his backup singers and changed their name to the Raelettes. He signed with Paramount after they offered him an unheard of 75 cents for every dollar. and had even bigger hits with “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Hit the Road Jack”, “Busted”, and “Georgia on My Mind” (which became the state song of Georgia) . By 1961 he’d stopped writing songs and just focused on uniquely soulful covers of other people’s songs. His film debut was in Swingin Along in 1961. He starred in Ballad in Blue. He was a junkie for twenty years but recovered by 1965. “Let’s Go Get Stoned” was his first hit in a long time. He hosted Saturday Night Live in 1977. He appeared three times on Sesame Street and four times on Super Dave. He played Sammy on The Nanny. In 1986 he recorded the duet “Baby Grand” with Billy Joel. His posthumously released album of duets Genius Loves Company wone the Grammies for Album of the Year and Record of the Year. His duet with Willie Naelson “Seven Spanish Angels” was #1 on the country charts. He had 12 children in and out of marriage. He got to drive a car by himself in Death Valley for a commercial and said it was one of the most exciting experiences of his life. He became a chess playing fanatic during his heroin recovery and liked to play games before concerts. He said Willie Nelson was his chess partner. He admire Nat King Cole and imitated him early on. He was not impressed by Elvis Presley. Billy Joel said Ray Charles was more important than Elvis. Sinatra said Ray Charles was the only true genius in in show business. He was one of the first singers to own his master recordings. He won 18 Grammy Awards. In 1981 he was criticized for defying the cultural ban of Apartheid and touring South Africa.