‘Other’ Ray Charles dies at 96; Emmy-winning composer backed Perry Como

Ray Charles, an Emmy-winning choral director, lyricist and composer who worked with Perry Como for three decades, sang the theme song for the television sitcom “Three’s Company” and didn’t mind being known as “the other Ray Charles,” died Monday at his Beverly Hills home. “I told them that was their problem,” Charles said in Joseph Lanza’s book “Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong”. When Reagan was handed a card with Charles’ name on it, he did a double-take and quipped, “I didn’t know you came in two colors.” Charles met the other Ray on a TV assignment and persuaded him to sing “America the Beautiful” on the Campbell show, more than a decade before the soul icon’s stirring rendition of the song at the 1984 Republican National Convention. He won Emmys for music and lyrics for two shows in 1971, “The First Nine Months Are the Hardest” and “The Funny Side.” He wound up singing the “Three’s Company” theme song by accident.