Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

Radford University's Preston Hall was the setting for Ray Charles' weekend recording session in 1992. When then-Radford President Donald Dedmon met Charles, he said, "Oh my, if I knew we were going to have a celebrity come in, I would have dressed better." Charles, blind since he was 7, replied, "Mr. President, to me everybody's dressed well."

Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

Joe Scartelli, dean of Radford University's College of Visual and Performing Arts, was the university's liaison for Ray Charles' recording session in 1992. Charles had been upset that a photographer was taking pictures, and Scartelli quickly apologized. "All of a sudden, in an instant, he changed. He said, 'It's great to meet you, man. Thank you for doing all this work. We're really excited about it.' It was like the picture thing never happened."

The Roanoke Times | File 1992

Ray Charles arrives at Roanoke's airport.

The Roanoke Times | File 1988

Marvin Washington puts some effort into his singing during a rehearsal.

Courtesy of Victoria Bond

Victoria Bond, former conductor and musical director of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, invited Charles to perform "A Black Requiem" with the orchestra in the late '80s.

RADFORD -- It did not begin well.

Ray Charles walked into Radford University's Preston Hall for a weekend recording session. Then he heard a camera shutter click nearby.

"And he went -- he went berserk," Joe Scartelli said. "He started screaming and cursing like a sailor. And I'm thinking, 'He isn't even 10 feet in the door and I've already blown it.' "

There weren't supposed to be any photographers at the session unless Charles had approved them ahead of time -- and he hadn't approved any photographers. Scartelli, dean of Radford's College of Visual and Performing Arts, was the university's liaison for the project. He walked over to the photographer, who worked for the university, confiscated his film and apologized to Charles.

The university was excited about having him on campus, Scartelli told Charles, and so they wanted to have photos of the event. No one knew about the photography prohibition.

"He was still out of breath from screaming," Scartelli said. "All of a sudden, in an instant, he changed. He said, 'It's great to meet you, man. Thank you for doing all this work. We're really excited about it.'

"It was like the picture thing never happened."

But that's not what Scartelli was thinking about.

"All I could remember was, he just called me 'man.' I felt like at that point I had arrived," Scartelli said. "He was wonderful after that."

But the university never did get any photos.

It was May 1992, and Ray Charles, winner of a dozen Grammys and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was in town to record "A Black Requiem," a Quincy Jones composition written to mark Charles' 25th anniversary in show business. Charles performed the piece in 1971 with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, an 80-voice choir and a jazz ensemble. Victoria Bond, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra's conductor and musical director in 1992, was in the audience.

"I was totally blown away with it," she said.

She thought it should be performed again, but Jones told her that might not be possible. He'd never put the score into a unified form. It was in bits and pieces. But there was a recording of the Houston performance. Bond thought she could reconstruct the score. Jones agreed to let her try.

"He gave me a whole box of little bits and pieces and sketches and everything all mixed up," Bond said.

But with the recording to guide her, Bond managed to weld the scraps back together.

"The piece made so much sense, it was so logically put together, that it was not enormously difficult to do that," Bond said.

When the piece was reconstructed, Bond invited Charles to perform it with the RSO. In 1988, Charles and the orchestra were joined by the 60-member Voices of Roanoke -- "They were gleaned from churches all over the area," Bond said -- for a performance at the Salem Civic Center. Charles liked the result so much that he wanted to record with the same group. Four years later, they converged on Radford University along with a jazz group that included Will Lee, then bass guitarist for David Letterman's The World's Most Dangerous Band and drummer Steve Ferrone, who flew in from a tour with Eric Clapton for the session.

"It was a massive operation," Scartelli said. "The stage had to be extended out, oh gosh, at least 20 feet -- so far it went past the pit and into the seats. They had to take out the first two or three rows of seats."

Workers built a plastic glass cube in the lobby for the jazz group, complete with a video screen so they could see what was happening on the stage inside. Charles spent most of his time in a mobile 49-track recording studio parked outside. It was part of what Scartelli called "a small fleet of 18-wheel trucks" and buses gathered outside Preston. Charles communicated by telephone with the musicians and singers inside the hall.

Altogether, Scartelli estimated, nearly 300 people were involved.

Security was tight.

"All the entrances on the side and the back were all taped off like a crime scene," Scartelli said. Security people watched the doors and kept the curious and the media at bay. "Ray was not to be disturbed. There weren't going to be any interviews. No pictures, anything like that."

Jeff DeBell was trying to cover the event for The Roanoke Times.

"At some point, I was allowed to see all the singers on stage," said DeBell, now retired from the Times. "I'm not sure I ever laid eyes on Ray Charles. If I did, it wasn't for long."

DeBell wrote at the time, "Charles wouldn't talk with reporters at all, and members of his entourage politely but firmly made certain that no one with a note pad or tape recorder got too close to their boss."

The orchestra and chorus rehearsed that Friday afternoon and evening. Recording sessions took up most of Saturday and Sunday, stretching past 10 p.m. But it was done. Charles recorded his piano sections there, Bond said, but there are spoken parts to the requiem, too.

"He does a whole preacher routine in it," she said.

That and some other pieces were to be recorded and mixed later in a California studio. Everyone expected it to be released commercially when all the parts were completed. That never happened.

Bond saw Charles later.

"He had in his pocket a cassette recording of everything put together, and it sounded just fabulous," she said.

But Charles said there were still some things he wanted to change, and there were some things Jones wanted to change.

"So there were still things left to do," Bond said. "And there were still, unfortunately, things left to do when he passed away. So I don't know if this recording will ever see the light of day. I certainly hope it does. ... It's a terrific piece."

Bond is not sure what became of the recording.

"I guess it's in the possession of his estate," she said.

Charles died in 2004. Media reports last year said his children were at odds with Charles' longtime manager, Joe Adams -- who was at the Radford recording session -- about the handling of their father's legacy. Adams no longer heads Charles' company or its foundation. No one from there responded to requests for comment on the Radford tapes.

But Charles did leave something behind at the university.

Soon after Charles arrived, Scartelli introduced him to then-Radford President Donald Dedmon. The first thing Dedmon said to Charles was, "Oh my, if I knew we were going to have a celebrity come in, I would have dressed better."

Charles, blind since he was 7, replied, "Mr. President, to me everybody's dressed well."

They talked for about 20 minutes.

As the weekend was ending, Charles' assistant handed a bag to Scartelli, and Charles told him to pass it along to Dedmon. He enjoyed talking with him. He loved the hall. He wanted to thank him for making it all possible.

"I looked in the bag," Scartelli said. "I didn't even know that they made these. It was a braille Playboy."

Charles had autographed it, with a message to Dedmon.

"Tell him," Charles said to Scartelli, "I only feel it for the articles."

Scartelli said Dedmon kept the gift in his presidential office, on a shelf next to photographs of his children.