Song:Love Me With All Your Heart
Album:Music Of Your Life: It Must Be Love
No it's not THAT Ray Charles. This Ray Charles worked for Perry Como for many years. And he recorded a lot of easy listening albums very similar to Ray Conniff. Love Me With All Your Heart was a top five hit in 1964. He was born Charles Raymond Offenberg Sept. 13, 1918 in Chicago. He started out with his own radio program in Chicago. After graduating college, he met future choir director Norman Luboff and that led to radio work. He moved to New York City in 1944. He was singing on ten shows a week. Then he took the stage name Ray Charles because it's easier than Offenberg. That was ten years before Ray Charles Robinson started calling himself Ray Charles. Charles continued to sing on the radio while in the US Navy during WWII. He met Perry Como in 1948 when his group The Satisfiers appeared on Como's radio show. When Your Hit Parade became a TV show in 1950, Charles led the vocal group on the show. This led to Charles becoming musical director of The Perry Como Show. He worked for Como for 35 years. He worked on other shows like Caesar's Hour starring Sid Caesar. Charles also recorded a few albums for MGM and Decca. He first formed The Ray Charles Singers in 1959. They were used for studio work at Decca but they also recorded a few albums. They backed up Buddy Holly on his final singles. Charles left Decca for Command Records owned by instrumental music legend Enoch Light. Charles heard the Spanish song Cuando Calienta el Sol while on vacation in Mexico. He liked the song so much he had English lyrics written for it. Love Me With All Your Heart reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964. The English lyrics were credited to Michael Vaughn but that appears to be an alias for veteran big band songwriter Sunny Skyler. That was Charles' only big hit but his albums sold well so he kept the group going for years. Charles continued to work for Como and he also worked on The Hollywood Palace and the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour and plenty of TV specials. Charles also wrote arrangements for Sha Na Na. And that's him singing the theme for the popular sitcom Three's Company. Charles went on to work on The Muppet Show and Kennedy Center Honors. Ray Charles died on Apr. 6, 2015 at age 96. He used to joke about being the other Ray Charles but the two worked together on TV. You can get Love Me With All Your Heart on this Time Life various artists budget comp. Here's a video for Love Me with All Your Heart by the Ray Charles Singers.
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