All Ears at Birthday Benefit for Charles

Ray Charles’ favorite charity aids the deaf. It’s Ear International, and Sunday night at the Hotel Bel Air the nonprofit organization used the singer’s 60th birthday as the occasion for a black-tie fund-raiser.

Charles said he has an especially strong interest in auditory problems because “my ears serve two purposes: They’re my eyes and my hearing. I feel it would be death without hearing. I try to take care of it as best I can because I know at 60 I ain’t gonna be no Helen Keller.”

One way the singer protects his hearing is by avoiding loud music. “I can’t see how people can sit in cars with the windows rolled up and have the speakers cranked up so you can hear it five blocks away,” Charles said. “When music is that loud, I can’t grasp it. Plus it makes me deaf.”

Though the five-piece SRO Band that jammed throughout dinner for the 110 guests played loud enough to make conversation tricky, it wasn’t enough to impair hearing.

The evening also honored Dr. Wilbur Gould, a Manhattan otolaryngologist best known for his work with performers. “He keeps the voices on Broadway singing,” said Constance Towers, who was honorary co-chairman with her husband, John Gavin. “He’s helped everyone from Leonard Bernstein to Placido Domingo and Yul Brynner to Amy Irving.”

Perhaps the warmest praise for Charles came midway through dinner, just before the performance by comic Danny Gans, when Quincy Jones arrived. Besides bringing $15,000 in contributions from Time Warner chairman Steve Ross and wife Courtney, Jones brought memories of a friendship with Charles that dates back 42 years.

“Ray used to say that joy is directly proportional to pain,” Jones said. “Ray learned how to deal with his pain and to work with it.

“It’s like Women’s Wear Daily said,” Jones explained. “He’s eternally ‘in.’ ”