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I find that rock-the soul style he developed, not the Beatles covers-puts useful restraints on his taste, the limitless flexibility of which hasn't always served him well.
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This is the only artist in history who's moved back and forth between jazz and rock and pop without the slightest sense of strain. In a remarkable show of benevolent corporate cooperation, this devotes one eighteen-song disc to his work with Atlantic, when Charles was inventing soul music, and another to his work with ABC, when he was demonstrating its apparently limitless flexibility. A-Ī 25th Anniversary in Show Business Salute to Ray Charles Or chuckle in abject lechery and infatuation on some ASCAP oldie. 'Cause Jim Reeves wouldn't syncopate that chapel bell. "Something," "The Long and Winding Road," "Wichita Lineman," "Down in the Valley," and "The Three Bells" on one LP? Would even Jim Reeves have the guff? Yeah, he might, which in his case is unfortunate. I wonder what Johnny Cash will make of the almost inaudible lowdown whisper that closes "Ring of Fire." Love it, probably. AĪs satisfying as Charles's first c&w records were conceptually and vocally, I was always a little turned off by his countrypolitan taste for strings and choruses, and they're still with us-more muted, but also more prosaically arranged, except on the godawful "Good Morning Dear." Still, the first side is pure Charles country-eccentric and sexy, which real country rarely is, and funny as only Charles can be. No balladeering here, no Beatle-mongering, nothing but hard-bopping Ray Charles soul. It's so easy to forget what a genius he still is. Clearly, Feller was made for the theme, augmented on this CD by otherwise unavailable bonus cuts that fit right in: "Teardrops in My Heart," "Drown in My Own Tears," even "Tired of My Tears." No need to worry about that last one, folks-he's only kidding. Tops among Rhino's ABC reissues is this concept album about crying overseen by Charles's longtime string arrange Sid Feller, who also gave the world the Jackie Gleason makeout albums of the '50s. Soon Charles's downhome diction, cotton-field grit, cornpone humor, and overstated shows of emotion were standard operating procedure in American music black and white. In the world it created, not only could a black person sing the American songbook Ella Fitzgerald owned by then, but a country black person could take it over. Sonically bolder (and schlockier) than, for instance, Owen Bradley's proto-countrypolitan Patsy Cline productions, its massed strings, horns, and choruses broke down the walls between classic Tin Pan Alley and declasse Nashville. So much more than proof we no longer need that an African-American can sing country music, this CD did nothing less than redefine American pop. Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music
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