As the longtime backing singers behind R&B immortal Ray Charles, the Raelettes deftly navigated the tightrope separating the sacred and the profane, infusing their gospel-inspired call-and-response vocals with a powerful eroticism that vaulted Charles to new levels of commercial and creative triumph. The roots of the Raelettes lie in another girl group, the Cookies, formed in Brooklyn in 1954 by vocalists Earl-Jean McCrea, Margie Hendrix, and Pat Lyles.
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