Ray Charles Plaza in Albany, Georgia

This last weekend, my wife and I went to Albany, Georgia for a family reunion celebrating my Grandmother’s 98th Birthday.

Albany is a small town, pretty much seems like Anytown, USA located out in the middle of nowhere.

Not a lot to see there, but there is the Ray Charles Plaza which features a very cool statue of the legendary musician. As my Grandmother told me when I was a kid, Charles was born in Albany on September 23, 1930, and although his family moved from there to Greenville, Florida when he was still a baby, it’s one of the town’s claims to fame.

On our way out of town on Sunday we stopped by the Plaza, located on the banks of the Flint River in downtown Albany, to check it out. Ray Charles' music, mostly live recordings it sounded like, coming from a bunch of small speakers placed around the statue greets you when you enter the small park.

There are giant piano keys and treble clefts carved in the concrete, and the statue itself, a life-sized recreation of the “Genius of Soul” singing while playing his baby grand piano captures the iconic image of the man quite nicely.

Here's a few shots to show you what I mean:

And here's one of the piano key walkways:

All in all, a pretty cool tourist attraction.

More later...

7-inch Picture Sleeve of the Week: David Bowie: “Ashes To Ashes”

I've been neglecting this blog (only posted once in January) lately because it's a busy season for Film Babble Blog but I'm going to try to remedy that this month. 

Last month, on his 66^th Birthday (January 8^th), David Bowie announced that he had secretly recorded a new album entitled The Next Day that would be releasing in March. To whet our appetites for the release, a video dropped online for the album’s single “We Are We Now?” The video was posted everywhere, and the single entered the UK charts at #6. It's official: the world still wants new Bowie music.

This flurry of Bowie activity inspired me to highlight the picture sleeve for one of my favorites from his catalog: “Ashes To Ashes” from his superb 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps.

The sleeve features Bowie as Pierrott the clown/mime with white makeup and sinister expression. The image is framed by Warholian-colored squares each featuring a different pose by Bowie in the same costume. The concept and art for this cover was designed by specialist Richard Sharah.

This character, one of Bowie’s many personas over the years, appears in the video for “Ashes To Ashes,” as much a favorite of mine as the song itself:

This is another 7-inch that I don't own, but since there are copies that aren't too expensive available on Ebay, I bet it'll find its way to my collection soon.

More later...