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Ray Charles signature study (just a start...)

I posted this earlier on another Ray Charles post but everyone got sucked into another matter.

I took two signed contract signatures as well as a 1988 signed 5x6 photo from Ray Charles Enterprises. We all know the full name cursive signatures are surely not real and I have seen dozens of these 5x6 photos of Ray signed with the fake full name signature. But this one, is different then the rest, the letter that came with it from Ray Charles's office states that they are sorry for running out the larger versions so please accept this smaller one instead. Is this Ray's actual signature? His real signature? I mean, it's on several contracts I have seen over the years and to me, it's looks like a blind mans interpretation of "Ray Charles". I personally feel Ray could sign more then block letters, he wasn't born blind and surely he could write some, or at least draw or doodle and I am sure he had at least seen writing so unlike Stevie Wonder he had a clue what writing even was and how it looked so I feel he could have taught himself over the years. idk, if you post that these are from a helper can you please post who signed his name like this, and also how you are sure of this? Thanks, and if someone could get Roger Epperson involved that would be great to try to work together and put together a solid Ray Charles signature (or lack there of) study.

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Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on June 5, 2017 at 7:42am

Thanks for your comparison montage Steve.

Mine was actually bought in Switzerland but that doesn't really matter. Perhaps slightly more important is that it was not originally obtained on 10 May 1962 but some time after that (it cannot be 10 May because the program contains a photo of a concert on that date). My guess is that it was obtained at one of the 17 - 22 May 1962 Olympia concerts, assuming that the promoter would have had time to print the programs within one week of the 10 May concert.    

Looking at the examples above, I would also think that three were unassisted or largely unassisted (mine, the book image and Donna Marie's) and three were considerably assisted (Phil's and Tomi's). Phil's NME example looks particularly neat/regular/well placed and Tomi's actually looks quite different to the rest in parts (lower case "y" and  strange angular letters for example). 

I cannot resist putting up the "thought real" examples discussed in the May 2005 Autograph Collector. The Sheraton example looks close to Phil's two and the Ramseier example to the less assisted examples above (including the one I was lucky enough to find on Saturday). Steve, please pull the magazine image if I am not allowed to show it.

I am also attaching an autograph of someone who has been blind from birth. His name is Gilbert Montagné and he is a French singer. This came from annother fleamarket find - an album full of early 70s visitors to an exclusive Zurich disco. This particular autograph has no great commercial value but I thought it would be interesting to see how diffcult it must be for a blind person to sign his or her name. The "M" is actually remarkably good. Perhaps it would be interesting to have a thread on visually impaired and blind signers and how they can form letters that others can recognise.

We could also philosophise as to whether a heavily assisted autograph really is an autograph as such.

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Permalink Reply by Phil Spilsbury on June 5, 2017 at 7:51am

In Paul's case he said Ray's handed was guided to the paper and he was left to sign it himself. just remember these are not autographs, these are from a blind man who was taught to sign at a very young age by his mother. They will never look constant. My two were taken moments apart and are not identical. They never will be if the person is blind. I repeat on mine though Ray was not assisted beyond having his hand placed above the paper he was signing. Remember mine are owned by someone who got these in person with Ray Charles and the experience is 1st hand experience and description of what happened. 

Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on January 18, 2021 at 8:35pm

"...

Remember mine are owned by someone who got these in person with Ray Charles and the experience is 1st hand experience and description of what happened..."

Stamp. As Shown.

Permalink Reply by Phil Spilsbury on June 5, 2017 at 8:04am

I'll just repeat what I said on mine. These autographs are owned by my friend who took these face-to-face with Ray Charles on 16th May 1963 in Birmingham UK. He signed 4 autographs for them and Ray hand wrote these in front of them. His manager or assistant guided Rays hand to the paper and Ray then signed them independently with no guidance. Paul is very clear in his recollection of the experience. The ones I've posted have a first hand experience attached to them. Not bought off a 3rd party with a second hand memory. Paul and his friend met Ray Charles early in afternoon when he arrived at the Odeon and there was only 4 people there. My friend Paul and his friend (who also had 2 autographs), Ray Charles and his assistant/manager. I've collated this and the others in the collection with first hand memories of meeting people like Ray Charles in person. So authenticity is not based on opinion but from an actual meeting which is why i posted them on here as people clearly had fakes and thought it might be of help posting genuine ones on as a reference point. 

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on June 5, 2017 at 8:12am

I'm glad you posted the magazine page, Eva! I'll post it as an image. Thank you.

Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on December 3, 2020 at 12:17am

I don't think so...

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on June 5, 2017 at 8:13am

Permalink Reply by Phil Spilsbury on June 5, 2017 at 8:24am

It makes you wonder how many authentic ones exist. I only posted mine on here after seeing several posts with fakes and after seeing so many fakes on ebay. Mine are at least owned by someone who got them first hand and face-to-face with a first hand memory of the autograph being given. so I though they'd be a great point reference. I didn't quite realise how rare they were.

Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on June 5, 2017 at 11:27am

I was also not aware how rare Charles' autograph is. Had I realised I would certainly not have thought for around 15 minutes before deciding to buy and would have got back from the cash machine pronto rather than stopping for over an hour to talk to other market sellers.

Phil, in recounting Paul's memory of a day in 1963 you have to remember that this was over 50 years ago. On top of that, Paul met hundreds of big name stars. Would meeting Charles have stood out so much as an experience that Paul could remember every last detail half a century later? 

Having only taken a serious interest in Charles' autograph for a grand total of three days I would not claim to be any sort of authority but I do have the feeling that Paul's examples are rather too well formed to have been written by a blind man, or at least a blind man with no assistance other than being pointed to the paper. That goes especially for the NME example. In that case I would think it would have been nigh-on impossible for Charles to sign so straight, clearly and evenly, even at a desk.

Out of curiousity, why did Paul and his friend ask for two autographs each? Did they always do this? Asking a blind man who hated signing to sign four times seems a bit mean to say the least.

Steve, apart from you is there anyone who could have a look at the examples posted by Phil and me this last week? Adam Andrusier was mentioned in the Autograph Collector article as an authority. How about Roger? 

Permalink Reply by Phil Spilsbury on June 5, 2017 at 12:10pm

Paul's recollections are quite sharp on most of the autographs we are collating. Remember these were big memories. My mother worked from 1956-early 1960's at the TV Studios in Birmingham where Paul got a lot of his autographs from and her recollections of all the stars she met over that time are still sharp today also, why wouldn't they be?. As for the number of autographs, they didn't specially ask for two but that's how many he did for them. What they actually did was carry around large bundles of pictures to get signed for each of the performers they were setting out to meet that day. In some cases they got far more than ten and were actually quite pushy and got as many as they could get away with. When they met the Beatles they got dozens. So blind or not they would have kept asking until he stopped. Sometimes they would also ask for mementos as well as autographs. One on occasion they asked Matt Monro for a memento and he gave them both (at 14 years old) a cigarette each - not what they were hoping for. As for whether it was nigh-on impossible for Ray Charles to sign those autographs the fact is he did them. This not based on opinion this is based on the memories of someone who stood in front of him and met and talked to him, everything else is opinions. In terms of star appeal, Paul said that this one stood out as it was from a massive American star and he was a bit star stuck. On the flip side he was back stage with the Beatles in 1962 in Birmingham when they were pretty much unknown here. He followed a lot of bands so he'd heard of them from the "Love Me Do" single but they only attracted 30 odd people to the gig. Paul and his friend got dozens of autographs from them and McCartney asked them to stay for the soundcheck. They declined, they were again an unknown band with one hit single and they had their autographs and that was enough so they declined. Likewise he met the Rolling Stones on their first national tour when they were bottom of the bill and Paul and his friend met them alone in the afternoon when they arrived at the venue and Jagger asked them if they knew any good local bookshops. Paul said yes and took them to a good one on Corporation Street. When they got their Jagger asked them if they wanted to stay and hang around with the band and then walk back to the venue - they declined, again an very unknown London band then! and they wanted to get back to the venue to get Little Richard and Bo Diddley's autographs - they were the stars! His memories are razor sharp which is why we are collating all these and all the stories for a possible book release. The one thing i can guarantee is that you will have seen at least two authentic Ray Charles autographs in your life time and those are the two I've posted. 

Permalink Reply by Phil Spilsbury on June 5, 2017 at 12:58pm

Note I'm not really looking for authenticity review on mine as these were not bought at a flea market or off any 3rd party. These are from a personally collected collection of hand-written face-to-face autographs. So I know the authenticity of the autographs and their stories. I'm just collating the autographs and stories for the owner both for a limited sale of some duplicates and for a possible book. I just thought you might find them useful as a point of reference for those who have got questions marks over the background of autographs they've bought. 

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on June 5, 2017 at 1:51pm

They are useful, Phil. There are four types of Ray Charles autographs that aren't outright forgeries:

  1. The style from signed photo in the book, plus Eva the Pug's, mine, the 2 in the magazine article provided by Rolf Ramsier, the one by the reader from Minn. in the magazine article, and there's one more that I don't have permission to post yet.

  2. Ones that look like polished versions of the ones above, from the same general time period.

  3. Ones like Tomi's, which he said an assistant guided Ray's hand. There's a Rolling Stone magazine signed in the early '70s that looks very similar to that, which parts of are also in that magazine article. He said someone guided Ray's hand, but this is the first time someone had the same story, and the autographs look similar.

  4. Then purely secretarial ones, most signed by Vernon Troupe, his long-time assistant. You find them on contracts and on brail magazines. Vernon gave me a Playboy with one of those on it. That's part of funny story I'll tell sometime.

The question is, why did he sign the first ones so crudely but sign ones like yours with a lot of polish?

Here are a couple secretarially signed contracts:

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