1. Ray Charles - What'd I Say
2. Stevie Wonder - Hallelujah, I Love Her So 6:46
3. Ray Charles & Stevie Wonder - Livin' For The City 11:14
4. Ray Charles & Willie Nelson - Busted 20:55
5. The Brand New Heavies - Never Stop 23:32
6. Ray Charles & Michael Bolton - Georgia On My Mind 28:22
7. Randy Travis - Your Cheatin' Heart 43:47
8. James Ingram - I Can't Stop Loving You 46:38
9. Michael McDonald - I Got A Woman 49:20
10. Tevin Campbell - Just Ask Me To 55:00
11. Ray Charles - Just For A Thrill 59:50
12. Gladys Knight - I Wish I Never Loved You At All 1:06:00
13. Ray Charles - Can't Keep A Good Man Down 1:09:56
14. Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder - America The Beautiful 1:21:20

Ray Charles - 50 Years in Music DVD is a solidly produced, star-studded musical tribute taped in front of a celebrity filled audience in Pasadena, California.

Ray Charles: 50 Years In Music, Uh-Huh! was a special TV show, commemorating Ray Charles's 50th year in the music industry (timing his debut at the Saint Augustine School for the Deaf and the Blind in 1942, when he started playing piano for afternoon tea parties and ladies' club socials!). The program was presented as a benefit event for the Starlight and Starbright Pavilion Foundations on 19 September 1991, in Pasadena, and was directed by Jim Yurich. With The Ray Charles Band, and a record breaking line-up of seven (7!) Raelettes. A 60-minute cut was aired by Fox on October 6. The DVD (embedded below) had 90 minutes.

There were plenty of stars, with Whoopi Goldberg, M.C. Hammer, Quincy Jones and Robert Townsend hosting segments; Paul McCartney and Gloria Estefan delivering taped tributes, and Michael McDonald, Randy Travis and James Ingram singing Charles hits. There's also a tape of John Belushi's hilarious Beethoven/Charles' imitation.

When Ray Charles: 50 Years In Music originally aired, it was the highest rated musical variety special in the history of Fox Network Television. It has had subsequent airings on The Family Channel, BET, Disney Channel, and Bravo TV.

Highlights abound in the show. It's hard to say which is better, Charles' duet with Stevie Wonder - Livin' For The City - or his performing Busted with Willie Nelson. The finale is for America the Beautiful. Bolton's contribution to Georgia, on the other hand, should be erased from history.

Cast members: Whoopi Goldberg, Quincy Jones, Robert Townsend, MC Hammer, Stevie Wonder, Michael Bolton, Randy Travis, Willie Nelson, Michael McDonald, James Ingram, Tevin Campbell, Paul McCartney, Bill Cosby, Gloria Estefan, Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, Tony Toni Tone.

Though they had been longtime friends, Living For The City was the first song written by Stevie Wonder that Ray felt was right for him to record (Renaissance, 1975): "I do it a lot differently than Stevie; I cut out a lot of the musical flourishes and I put that long rap in the middle, talkin' ‘bout the rats and roaches." The song earned Ray a Grammy Award in 1975 for Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance, Male.

Review: It's possible, likely even, that Ray Charles put on a few poor or at least perfunctory performances in his career, but 50 Years in Music isn't one of them. Combined with his sheer talent, the man's natural ebullience and joy at playing music were enough to transcend the restrictions of any given scene--in this case, an antiseptic concert hall filled with a glamorous crowd barely visible beyond the footlights. In fact, if there's any significant drawback to this 90-minute show, recorded in 1991 in Pasadena, California, it's that there isn't enough Ray. Days before his 60th birthday, he showed up to deliver versions of a few of his standards ("What'd I Say," "Busted," "Georgia On My Mind," "America the Beautiful"), along with some less usual fare (the country-tinged "Just for a Thrill," the bluesy "Can't Keep a Good Man Down"), imbuing every tune with a freshness one might have thought impossible, given how many times he'd performed them. But there's a lengthy mid-show stretch when Charles isn't even onstage, and classics like "Your Cheatin' Heart," "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "I Got a Woman" are performed by Randy Travis, James Ingram, and Michael McDonald respectively; good singers all, but not in a league with Brother Ray. Meanwhile, three duets yield mixed results: Ray and Stevie Wonder mesh superbly on "Livin' for the City" and Willie Nelson relaxes with the star on "Busted," but the egregious Michael Bolton damn near ruins "Georgia" with his ear-shattering, over-the-top emoting. And the presence of Tevin Campbell (a young Quincy Jones protégé who comes on like a more wholesome version of Michael Jackson) and Brit band the Brand New Heavies, neither of whom performs a song that has anything to do with Ray Charles, is merely baffling. 50 Years in Music is just fine as tributes go, but as the late attorney Johnnie Cochran might have put it, "If you've got Ray, let him play." --Sam Graham