From 1949 to 1951, he was choral arranger-conductor on The Big Show, the last big radio variety show with Tallulah Bankhead and Meredith Willson. The group performed on Como's The Chesterfield Supper Club. Charles initially became associated with Perry Como in 1948 through his arrangements for the vocal group the Satisfiers. In 1947, he was the conductor for the Broadway hit Finian's Rainbow, and conducted the original cast recording. He also conducted the band on their two CBS weekly shows.ĭischarged in 1946, Charles sang on New York radio ("Um Um Good" for Campbell's soups among other gigs) and on many record dates. Drafted into the Navy in 1944, Charles was assigned to Hunter College, where he created an entire new music library for the WAVE choruses and trained the "Singing Platoons", three choruses of 80 WAVES each, on six-week training cycles that sang on the radio, bond rallies and at local veterans hospitals. This was several years before the rhythm and blues singer Ray Charles first recorded under the same name in the early 1950s. In May 1944, Offenberg changed his name to Ray Charles. At this time, close harmony singing was popular, and Charles became the arranger and tenor for the Double Daters, a vocal quartet featured on Million Dollar Band. īy 1944, he was doing 10 radio shows a week. In 1942, Offenberg, with his wife, Bernice and son, Michael, came to New York City and he started getting work, singing on the radio for Lyn Murray, Ray Bloch and other choral directors. In 1936, Offenberg joined the Federal Theater show O Say Can You Sing, sharing a dressing room with the young Buddy Rich. After graduation, he attended Central YMCA College, where he met fellow future choral director Norman Luboff, who was to become a lifelong friend. At 16, while still at Hyde Park High School, he had his own 15 minute radio program on WENR and won a vocal scholarship to the Chicago Musical College.
Īt the age of 13, Charles Raymond "Chuck" Offenberg (as he was known then) won a contest to sing on the radio in Chicago. Charles was acknowledged as an authority on American popular music. In his later years, he continued to serve as a musical consultant to television programs, most notably for 31 years on the Kennedy Center Honors.
He is also known for "Letters, We Get Letters", also originally written for Como's show and later used on the Late Show with David Letterman. It was originally written for The Perry Como Show. As a songwriter, Charles was best known for the choral anthem "Fifty Nifty United States" in which he set the names of the states to music in alphabetical order.
Fifty nifty united states series#
Īs a vocalist, Charles, along with Julia Rinker Miller, sang the theme song to the television series Three's Company ("Come and Knock on Our Door"). Ray Charles (born Charles Raymond Offenberg September 13, 1918 – April 6, 2015) was an American musician, singer, songwriter, vocal arranger and conductor who was best known as organizer and leader of the Ray Charles Singers who were featured on Perry Como's records and television shows for 35 years and were also known for a series of 30 choral record albums produced in the 1950s and 1960s for the Essex, MGM, Decca and Command labels.
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