Facts: - years active: 1950s -- 1990s - past members: mary ann fisher - caption: the patricia lyles , and gwendolyn berry -rrb- . raelettes -lrb- darlene mccrea , margie hendricks , - origin: united states - genre: r & b , pop , soul - name: ray charles & the raelettes - image size: 208 - background: group_or_band - label: tangerine/abc-paramount - associated acts: ray charles - occupation: girl group Based on these bullet points, write a short biography describing the life of the raelettes .
The answer to this question is:
the raelettes were an american girl group in the 1950s , 1960s , 1970s , 1980s and 1990s , formed , as their name suggests , to provide backing vocals for ray charles .its membership originally consisted of darlene mccrea , margie hendricks , patricia lyles , and gwendolyn berry .later members included mable john , merry clayton , clydie king , minnie riperton , susaye greene , dorothy berry , beverly lesure and rita graham , who recorded the album '' rita graham vibrations '' produced by ray charles on his tangerine label , the only major recording production ray charles produced for a single female artist on that label .of margie hendricks , ray charles said , '' aretha , gladys , etta james -- these gals are all bad , but on any given night , margie will scare you to death . ''the 1980s set of raelettes included avis harrell , madlyne qubeck , estella yarbrough , trudy cohran , janice mitchell , pat peterson and alexandra ' alex ' brown , who had a minor hit with the single '' -lrb- come on , -rrb- shout '' , which was featured on the soundtrack of the movie '' girls just want to have fun '' .the 1990s set of raelettes included paula moye , angela workman and tracey whitney .although they never gained fame for their singles , they had a number of pop and r&b hits and several have gone on to solo careers .before becoming the raelettes , the group were known as the cookies .the group 's name was on occasions also spelled as raelets or raeletts .