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The Ray Charles Suite 714 at Le Royal Monceau - Raffles Paris
THEY say Paris is for lovers. That was certainly the case for American singer-songwriter Ray Charles, whose Parisienne paramour – and mother of one of his 12 children – was photographer and singer-songwriter Arlette Kotchounian.
Ray Charles adored Paris, performing regularly in the French capital from the early 1960s until shortly before he died in 2004. It was during one of these visits that he met Kotchounian. She, in turn, introduced him to what was then Le Royal Monceau Hotel, and for more than a decade this was where the couple stayed whenever Ray Charles was in town.
The Ray Charles suite, spread over 270 sq ft (118 sq m) up in the eaves, was created a few years after the musician’s death. Kotchounian was invited to think about how the suite could best reflect her former lover and it was her idea to hang several of her private photographs featuring the artist at the Royal Monceau. The suite’s Pleyel grand piano was another of her suggestions: an accomplished pianist, Ray Charles learned to play shortly before he lost his sight at the age of seven; he could read and write music in braille and marked his keyboards with braille stickers.
Just as Ray Charles loved France, so France loved him: in 1986 he received two prestigious awards: the medal of Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and a Victoires de la Musique (the French equivalent of the Grammys) award for his ‘contributions to le jazz, for performing over 200 concerts in France, and for his joie de vivre’.
In 2002, Ray Charles brought his joie de vivre to Paris one last time, performing at the Jazz Festival of Paris. His suite is Le Royal Monceau’s enduring tribute to the man they still call The Genius.
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