A really fun parade of six different 1963 Ray Charles window cards, from the spring through the end of the year. Four I have in my possession, and two are represented with photographs.

And there are three different designs used for these half-dozen posters, although the predominant one is the orange one you saw in the thumbnail grab of this video.

The first Ray Charles concert advertisement I show you hails from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and has a very busy venue information section up at the top. It describes several different ways you can buy your tickets.

The body of the poster is what I call the “tour blank” portion, meaning it was used almost all year long with nothing changing – the orange area. Everything changed day-to-day up top; nothing changed down below.

So the permanent wording found on this Ray Charles fence poster states that he was “An unforgettable musical experience!” and “The most creative musical giant of this generation!”

Not humble words, but his nickname was “the Genius,” after all, and hyperbole often appears in any marketing materials. But hey – can you name a more “creative musical giant” than Ray at this time, in his prime?

Then the second Ray Charles concert card I show you is actually a throwback to his 1961 tour-blank poster, for which I have a second video posted. It’s the lovely red & yellow one with Quincy Jones mentioned.

It’s a little out of chronological order, being from March (’63), but I wanted to start this video off with the orange tour blank since it’s the predominant one throughout my presentation.

That Ray Charles playbill poster is from the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, MO, and since I didn’t have the poster in my possession, I hold up a photograph of it for discussion.

Then I move along to Buffalo, New York in the summertime, where Buffalo Jazz Festival promoter Joe Rico always created his own concert posters, and this show was no exception.

Rico’s Ray Charles street sign is strikingly different from the others in this video, although it’s still 14×22 inches in size and made of cardboard (like all the others).

It not only uses two photographs – both Ray himself and the Raelets as a foursome – but has lots of local information spread throughout, including “The Crowning of Miss WUFO of 1963.”

The next Ray Charles ticket poster is from Sacramento, CA at the famed Memorial Auditorium. (I’ve video-blogged several other cool concert posters from this hallowed venue.)

I forgot to mention that it says along the bottom of each of these orange posters, “His Orchestra and the Raelets” and “Entire Production under the supervision of Jeff D. Brown.”

The next Ray Charles boxing-style concert poster is from a college in Montclair, New Jersey. It was just Montclair State College at the time, but has since become a University.

This has the craziest ticket-buying information of them all… since it was held on a college campus, students could only buy tickets at oddball times on varying days, and never on the weekend. It’s all spelled out right there on the poster.

And the last Ray Charles concert sign of this video is represented by a photograph… it’s the last weekend of the year, Saturday night Dec. 28, and the venue was the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA.

The Shrine is another one of those hallowed institutions that held a tremendous number, and variety, of live concert events over the years, but they didn’t use posters very much for advertising.

These six Ray Charles show placards were shown to you today with great enthusiasm by Pete Howard of San Luis Obispo, CA. That would be me, yes, and I can be contacted two different ways: pete@postercentral.com or (805) 540-0020. Please always keep in mind that I pay the very best prices realized in this hobby for vintage R&B show cards like these six, from any good musician.

And to see a few more sweet examples of these, just click over one spot here on my site to this page: http://www.postercentral.com/rhythmnblues.htm