Ray Charles in Lakewood CA

In the Beachcomber, published today, is the following story...thought there'd be some interest in the subject.

Ray Charles in Lakewood
by: Steve Propes

Ray Charles passed away on June 10, 2004 at age 73, but during his almost seven decades of popularity, Charles performed at venues throughout the world.

Dubbed “The Genius of Soul” or simply “The Genius,” Ray Charles was slated to appear twice at the Long Beach Blues Festival, originally in 2003, and for a short while, he was promoted to appear for the 2004 concert. However, he cancelled both dates because of poor health.

But it was an unscheduled Ray Charles concert at the Lakewood location of Wallich’s Music City, which appears in no Charles biographies, that sticks in the mind of just a handful of lucky customers and employees.

At one time, there were a half-dozen Wallich’s Music City outlets in Southern California. The Lakewood store opened in early July 1957 with great fanfare and an actual on-site concert with the likes of Nat King Cole Peggy Lee, Fess Parker and Julie London.

But that event pales to when Ray Charles visited the store, according to East Long Beach resident Jim Vincent. “It was probably 1961. I was working as the night manager of Wallich’s Music City in Lakewood. I was scheduled to take time off to go to a dinner with a friend, at 6:30 or 7 in the evening.

As I was going out, two men were walking in, one with big, dark glasses, and another man in a driver’s uniform. The man in dark glasses was Ray Charles and I recognized him right away. I introduced myself and they asked where the musical instrument department was.

It was an Al Kalie Music store inside our store, the place where people came for accordion lessons, that sort of thing. I took them back to one of their salesmen and I introduced them,” Vincent recalled.

“Then the concert began. It occurred to me, ‘Ray Charles is here, do you think I’m going to dinner?’ He tested about a half dozen organs. He just noodled to different things on a few of the organs, a few little rock things, his music flow was just astounding, just to be standing there, watching
him perform.

There were half a dozen people in the store while he was there, but no crowd gathered, because, as manager, I decided to keep it quiet. I don’t know if he bought anything that night, but he did try out at least a half dozen organs.”

Not long after that, Charles’ best-selling “Genius+Soul=Jazz” organ-based LP was released, reaching number four on the pop charts where it remained for an impressive 48 weeks. It was one of his most successful record releases, and it all began at the Lakewood location Wallich’s Music City on an otherwise slow night in 1961.