Southeast Missouri native writes about love affair with Ray Charles

Young women have always dreamed of meeting their favorite entertainers, but Marci Harris Soto, formerly of Lutesville, Mo., actually met hers: Ray Charles. They had a 30-year love affair, and now Soto has written a book about it, "Ray and Me."

Soto, known to her friends in Lutesville as "Doody" Harris, met Charles in New Orleans. She has also maintained a lifelong friendship with Don and Corrine Eaker, formerly of Marble Hill, Mo., and writes in her book that she and Charles enjoyed many evenings with the Eakers.

Soto left Lutesville when she was 17.

"I remember having fun and the ball games," she said. "I remember taking the bus to Zalma, Patton, Advance and Greenville" to go to games.

She said she remembers singing in church with her family, riding horses and going to her mother's beauty shop, Ruby's Beauty Shop, after school. She said she donates yearly to the upkeep of the Grassy Cemetery where her mother is buried, and that her brother Don lives near Grassy and raises horses there.

She left all those memories behind at 17 when her family moved to the St. Louis area.

She later married and had two daughters. The marriage to an abusive husband ended in divorce. What sustained her over the years was a sometimes-tumultuous relationship with Charles, which lasted until she broke it off several years before his death.

Among her favorite memories are spending time with Charles in her home, playing games and singing together at the upright piano in her basement family room, she said. She cherishes the "ordinary things" they did when he would visit her -- conversations over coffee, going out to eat, enjoying Corrine Eaker's homemade blackberry pie.

"My kids thought a lot of him, and he thought a lot of them," she said.

Throughout the book, Soto, now 72, also shares her growth over the years.

She made a cozy, loving home for her two daughters, and became independent and self-aware through counseling with a self-help organization.

She and her two daughters now own a business together, All About Cleaning Inc., in Kirkwood, Mo. She rescues animals and is an avid gardener and a doting grandmother.

She treasures her memories of Charles, and has only one regret: "I never told him how much I loved him," she said of her final phone call to him after learning of his terminal illness.

"Ray and Me" is available through Amazon.com or through Monograph Publishing at 636-938-1100.