Ray Charles

LEGENDARY POP SINGER Ray Charles will be the featured entertainer at the Associated Black Charities' charity gala, "Giving Gifts through Music," at the Meyerhoff on June 27.The benefit performance is the most ambitious fund-raising project in its six-year history and will give special recognition to civic leaders Alan Cooper, Tony Hawkins and J. Tyson Tildon for their contributions to the black community.C&P's Hank Butta is honorary chair with co-chairs Fredye Murphy of the Enterprise Foundation and Sina Reid of SMR Ltd. Tickets range from $25 to $500 and can be reserved by calling 669-7900.

This weekend proved again Baltimoreans can find first-rate live music without leaving town.Yesterday, T. Herbert Dimmock III led a skilled chorus of 60 friends of Donald C. Arenth, many of them students of Frederick Petrich, and all voluntary singers uniting for a moving memorial tribute to Arenth in an AIDS benefit. Arenth, who died Jan. 30, sang locally.That Baltimore is packed with talent was clearly heard in the concert at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, Park Avenue. The Arenth chorus sang Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus and a sterling Faure Requiem, with soloists Paul Redline, Timothy Kjer and Phyllis Burg and Brown's organist Eugene Belt.

RAY CHARLES figures that after 45 years in show business, he's a pretty good utility ballplayer who's no expert in any music field, but with variety, he keeps young at 58."I can play a little shortstop, I can pitch, I can play the outfield. That's the key to my longevity."So I'm not a jazz singer but a singer who can sing some jazz," Charles said by phone from Los Angeles. "And I'm not a rhythm and blues singer but I can sing some rhythm and blues. Same for country and western, rock 'n'roll.