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Authenticity is Everything
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.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Phil Spilsbury on
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Mine above were taken face-to-face in Birmingham. UK in 1963 and are 100% authentic so use them as a base but remember also these are not really signatures. When we write signatures we can see and write them consistently where as Ray Charles was simply writing block capitals that probably weren't going to be consistent from one to the next but merely similar. I've got several Ray Charles autographs but one is on an old UK NME magazine with 70 other autographs with all sorts of stars in like Sammy Davis Jr , all taken face-to-face through 1963, so no idea what it could be worth.
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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on
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Stamp.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on
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Eva, my pug...
If it is a live autograph, then it is very likely genuine in my opinion. If so, it was an incredibly good buy.
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Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on
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Thank you Steve. I would be surprised if either the original owner or the fleamarket seller faked the autograph given the price asked. Given how it is signed I doubt it is secretarial either.
Having seen two of the inner pages on a dedicated Ray Charles site I can confirm that it is from the Olympia shows towards the end of May 1962. As I was born at the end of May 1962 that is quite a nice thing (we pugs look after ourselves in Switzerland). I believe the shows are on CD so I must search them out.
It is rather ironic that I should pick the program up 3 days after Phil posted his examples to fairly ancient threads and a few months after buying the May 2005 Autograph Collector magazine. I hadn't even looked at the threads before buying the program.
Based on another thread I assume the RR Auction program didn't sell and you bought it privately with a donation to the owner's chosen charity. That was a very kind gesture on your part and on the part of the owner.
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Someone asked me to see mine last year but I'd not sorted them out until recently. I'm working my way through a 1000+ hand-written autograph collection that a friend of mine who collected them all face-to-face through 1962 to 1964 when he was 14 and 15 years old. Some we are selling, some we are not as he has many duplicates. It was only in the last week that I came across the Ray Charles ones buried inside a book with 70 other autographs in. He remembers meeting Ray before the concert in Birmingham in 1963 and was surprised when he stopped and talked them at Stage Door and I guess cos they were just kids he agreed to sign autographs for my both my friend Paul and his friend who was with him. They got two autographs each.
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Stamp...I never get tired of saying it and showing it. Stamp.
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This is a compilation of a Ray Charles signed photo in a book by his European tour manager in the early 1960s, Phil's, a pug called eva's, Tomi Lindblom's one guided by his manager, and the one signed for Donna Marie Hayes in 1961.
Kevin Glackmeyer has one similar to Tomi's, that he also said was guided by someone for Ray, that he got in the early 1970s in Alabama. That one isn't in here, but it's similar to Tomi's:
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I guess the thing to note is that it's not a signature in the true sense as he never had a signature and being blind would not be able to produce a consistent identical signature. They are all very similar and of a similar style but not identical. Even my two which were taken together are not 100% identical. Also factor in with any autograph taken in person at a stage door is what is supporting the item when the signature is taken. Hop onto ebay and you can see lots and lots of supposed Ray Charles autographs selling to poor people which look 100% better than my autograph and I can see. Great examples of genuine ones above though. My two are from 16th May 1963 at the Birmingham Odeon UK.
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Phil,
Yours look similar to Eva's and mine (the Donna-Marie Hayes example) but yours are much more polished. I suspect that a Ray Charles assistant took them inside the stage doors and signed them similarly to how Ray signed.
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Mine were taken face-to-face with Ray Charles. My friend who got these from Ray stood there and chatted to him.
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How can the difference between those and the signed photo in the book and the others that are crudely signed be explained? The book one is from his European manager.
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I have no idea where the others come from and if they were bought from 3rd parties, but certainly the two I have are owned by a good friend of mine who at 14 years old stood at the stage door of the Odeon with Ray Charles whilst Ray signed a total of four autographs for Paul and his friend whilst chatting to them. Over a period of 18 months he collected over 1000+ autographs from numerous stars at venues across Birmingham and Coventry. He always took the autographs face to face and the only times the items ended up back stage he went back stage also, in fact he knew the back stage layout of most of those venues so got back stage as a kid often. He was back stage with the Beatles in 1962 in Handsworth and also people like Lesley Gore when she was 17 and other UK stars (whom you may not know) like Adam Faith. He met, spoke and got autographs from 100's of people like Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Little Richard, Roy Orbison, Bo Diddley, Duke Ellington, Bobby Vee, the Four Seasons, Jerry Lee lewis, Gene Vincent, The Everly Brothers, Nat King Cole. the list is endless. His collecting days ended when he was 15 years old and had to leave school and work. My specialist area is the UK live music scene from that period and several other periods. We are collating some of these for sale and also for one of several live music books we are putting together. As I said i've got no idea where these others come from but Paul can sit down and talk to anyone and describe precisely the experience of meeting Ray Charles and him signing these autographs in front of him.
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