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The Genius at Work

A Critical Discography: Five Decades of Dejection, Soul, R&B, Jazz, Country and Classic Schmaltz

Whatsoever heir-apparent'due south guide to Ray Charles records will be problematic because Ray Charles' discography is a awe-inspiring mess. The stalwart All Music Guide lists some lx original albums and 200-plus compilations, and at that place are more. Charles' xl-ane pre-Atlantic tracks have been recycled so relentlessly that in early 2004, 20 labels had interchangeable collections in print.

With his vast mail-Atlantic output, there's the opposite problem: scarcity. Among Charles' many innovations is that after 1960 he owned the masters of all his new recordings. A legendary skinflint, Charles fix a loftier price on this work. That'due south one reason the reissue giant Rhinoceros, part of the same corporation every bit Atlantic, has leaned heavily on the R&B-jazz Charles of the mid- to belatedly Fifties. In 1998, Rhino released a flawed series of post-Atlantic twofers that lost steam earlier information technology passed 1965. The program should resume in 2005. As of at present, though, many of Charles' better albums have never reached CD.

There'southward another problem: Even Charles' better albums were imperfect. In 1960, he started a publishing company called Tangerine Music and all but stopped writing songs, instead collecting royalties on the undistinguished copyrights of his stable. More of import, Charles' musical omnivorousness extended well across his oft-cited blues-gospel-country-jazz synthesis. Nifty American that he was, Charles didn't dear merely the certified roots genres -- he loved schmaltz, and he loved schlock. The schmaltz, typified by the serviceable string arrangements of Sid Feller, he frequently transformed. The schlock, embodied by big bands and choral backup, could be ruinous. Sometimes the bands are solid jazz and the choruses acceptable schmaltz, and either can provide dial. But they nail or swamp also many tracks into the wide blue yonder or the briny deep.

Because Charles remains both seminal and enjoyable, however, his gaffes have their own charm, especially alongside his strokes of, as the saying goes, genius. Anoint him for never making a gospel anthology. And understand that whatever map of his oeuvre must be personal and conditional.

That said, at that place'due south one articulate reference point, a monument visible from a mile away: 1997's five-CD, 102-rail Genius and Soul: The 50th Ceremony Collection (Rhino), selected in part by Brother Ray himself, reportedly upon the occasion of a seven-effigy advance. Thousand&S stands astride all of Charles' piece of work, testifying noisily to his continuing vitality. Of course preferences vary. Of course there are classics passed by ("Mess Effectually") and rarities that deserve nothing better ("The Cincinnati Kid"). But cover his all-embracing aesthetic and you'll agree that, as seldom happens with these megaboxes, the terminal CD is a worthy companion to the get-go - that in fact Leon Russell's "A Song for You" and Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years," which cease it, are more typical and but manifestly improve than Ray's own "Confession Blues" and "Baby Permit Me Hold Your Hand," which begin information technology. (Budget alternative: Rhino's two-CD Ultimate Hits Drove, which includes "Mess Around.")

If you crave Charles' early sides, you've got some dejection scholar in you, so spring for the great, complete, well-annotated Birth of a Fable 1949-1952 double (Ebony). The piano pleases, the singing develops and the songwriting tops out with the jocose "Kissa Me Baby." Before long he'll flower. Simply Nat "King" Cole and Charles Brownish worked the aforementioned lounge-trio vein with far more flair. (Upkeep alternative: The Early Years, on King.) In full bloom is The Birth of Soul: The Complete Atlantic Rhythm & Blues Recordings, 1952-1959 (Atlantic). Equally product, the three-CD, 151-infinitesimal box comes with caveats. As listening, it's the rockingest Charles long-grade you lot can buy. Although Charles' fabled blues-gospel synthesis is on brandish from "I Got a Woman" to "I Believe to My Soul," "nativity of soul" gets the emphasis wrong. Seldom conventionally catchy, this Robert Palmer-annotated collection epitomizes a world-historic catchall of a genre that Charles could only depict every bit "genuine down-to-world Negro music" -- namely, rhythm & blues. Crack bands, outset Atlantic's and then his own, underpin his rich, gravelly vocals with difficult-hitting grooves of deceptive rhythmic and harmonic complexity. Halfway in, a female backup group before long to be known as the Raeletts starts shoring up his male voice and egging it on, an innovation that became a platitude so fast people recall it was always there. (Upkeep alternative: Rhino's The Best of Ray Charles: The Atlantic Years.)

The caveats are economic. Not but would the three CDs fit onto two, but xx of the fifty-i songs -- the catchiest, natch -- repeat on G&S. And eighteen, including iv besides on G&South, announced on the astute Blues + Jazz twofer (Rhinoceros). Jazz chops helped ascertain Charles' singular popular identity, and he both articulated and stimulated an appetite for "soul jazz." He was a tastier soloist than vamp merchants such as Les McCann. Simply a pantheon jazzman he was not, and only vibraphone connoisseurs will want all of his renowned Milt Jackson collaborations (available in toto as Soul Brothers/Soul Meeting, on Rhino). Highlighting combo interactions far from the big-band bombast of its dreadful opposite number, Genius + Soul = Jazz/My Kind of Jazz, Dejection + Jazz's artfully configured jazz disc includes sessions led by Charles' longtime saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman, who did more with his jazz concept than its inventor. Charles fifty-fifty plays alto sax on a few cuts -- damn well, for a few cuts. Redundant or not, the blues disc goes down just as smooth, epitomizing a perfect mix of downward-dwelling and citified the fashion the jazz ane does a perfect mix of unintellectual and uncorny. Throw upward your hands and buy a bunch of songs twice (or thrice).

Buy both volumes of the legendary Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music and you'll duplicate seven more than. Unfortunately, yous tin can't -- not both, non on CD, not without investing in songs you don't want in one case. The 2 Modernistic Sounds albums occupy Disc One of the four-CD Consummate Land & Western Recordings 1959-1986. The remainder of the box comprises G&South desirables from the Atlantic Hank Snow cover "I'm Movin' On" to the Columbia George Jones collab "We Didn't See a Thing"; dubious follow-upwardly land LPs; and uneven production from Charles' Nashville foray on Columbia in the Eighties, including the not-bad-at-all duet album Friendship (available from Columbia as Ray Charles and Friends' Super Hits), where Ricky Skaggs and Hank Williams Jr. attain glories beyond the reach of the Oak Ridge Boys. Inevitably, the box also features magnificent obscurities: bluesified "Band of Burn"; George Jones-worthy "A Girl I Used to Know"; hee-hawing "iii/4 Time" -- all buried so deep they deserve a downloading.

Oh, well. Volume Two vinyl is findable used online, and it's half a footstep down from Modernistic Sounds itself, which remains the mode to go. This CD stands as then much more than proof we no longer demand that an African-American can sing country music. It did nothing less than redefine American pop. Sonically bolder (and schlockier) than, for instance, Owen Bradley's countrypolitan Patsy Cline productions, its massed strings, horns and choruses bankrupt downward the walls between classic Tin Pan Aisle and declasse Nashville. In the earth it created, non but could a black person sing the American songbook Ella Fitzgerald owned by and so, but a country blackness person could take information technology over. Soon Charles' down-home wording, cotton-field dust, corn-pone humor and overstated shows of emotion were standard operating procedure in American music, blackness and white.

Even before Mod Sounds, though, Charles' move to ABC had paid off with his first Number One unmarried, a version of Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia On My Heed" that heralded the even huger "I Can't Terminate Loving You." The LP information technology launched, The Genius Hits the Route, was a big-ring concept album about American identify names, and information technology, too, had a precedent: The Genius of Ray Charles, on Atlantic -- an eclectic standards drove ranging from "Alexander's Ragtime Band" to "Come Rain or Come Polish" to the Percy Mayfield blues "Two Years of Torture." Thank producers Jerry Wexler and Nesuhi Ertegun, who noodged five different arrangers into the subtlest charts of Charles' career. Charles tried many times, simply except for Modern Sounds, he never again assembled such a consistent album in this mode.

Tops among Rhino'due south ABC reissues is Sugariness and Sour Tears, a concept anthology virtually crying, overseen by Feller, who was made for the theme, and augmented by otherwise unavailable bonus cuts that fit correct in. Beyond its G&South tracks, The Genius Hits the Road is more awkward, its standouts a comic "New York's My Dwelling" and a "Moonlight in Vermont" that clearly inspired Willie Nelson's. Ray Charles and Betty Carter/Dedicated to Y'all is a harder telephone call. With all respect to Raelett Margie Hendrix, Carter proves the most gifted woman vocalist Charles ever worked with, matching him as they honour tunes such as "Ev'ry Fourth dimension Nosotros Say Goodbye," "For All Nosotros Know" and "Baby, It's Common cold Outside." Simply Defended to Y'all, a concept album nearly girls' names, smarms out by "Stella past Starlight" and "Sweetness Georgia Chocolate-brown." Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul/Have a Smile With Me is up and down at a lower level -- three of Ingredients' four winners are on G&South, with the Benny Carter-bundled "In the Evening (When the Lord's day Goes Down)" a lost classic. It's paired with a concept album about novelty songs, which is the funniest matter well-nigh it.

As Charles stopped scoring hits, his albums got ever dicier, merely at least iv vinyl-onlys from the Seventies distinguish themselves. Volcanic Action of My Soul (Tangerine/ABC) is textbook hodgepodge: Beatles songs, Jimmy Webb songs, country dink, a blues, an ASCAP chestnut and "All I Always Need Is You," shortly to go Acme Ten for Sonny and Cher. A Bulletin From the People (Tangerine/ABC) is Charles' idea of patriotism. Keyed to what was eventually recognized every bit a classic rendition of "America the Beautiful," information technology salutes James Weldon Johnson, Stevie Wonder and John Denver; gleefully reconstructs Melanie'southward "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma"; and tarries with three of his own copyrights. In 1977, Charles returned to Atlantic for True to Life, where a side of mixed standards -- from "I Tin Run across Clearly Now" to "How Long Has This Been Going On" -- was enough to overwhelm the 3 Tangerine songs on the B side. Fifty-fifty improve was 1979's Ain't It And so, whose "Some Enchanted Evening," "Blues in the Night" and "What'll I Do" would have spruced up Rhino'southward Standards rehash.

Yet not long later, Charles' effective recording career footing to a halt. He was only 50 in 1980, just age can do that if you're out of touch, and though Charles toured hard for every bit long equally his body held upwardly, the gigs became routinized and nostalgia-driven. The well-nigh vivid document of how alive they once were is the skillfully compiled two-disc Ray Charles in Concert (Rhino), which opens with the don't-miss Margie Hendrix pas de deux "(Night Fourth dimension Is) The Correct Time" as information technology cherry-picks shows from 1958, 1959, 1962 and 1964 (the first two, from his rock & roll youth, brand up Atlantic'south unmarried-disc Ray Charles Live). The 1975 Tokyo and Yokohama performances that fill out the 2nd half of Disc 2 betray no letdown. Merely past the Eighties, the circular of bookings began to become old.

Anyway, for whatever reason, his 1978 discofied Atlantic anthology was dead on its feet, his Nashville period nosotros've covered, his halfhearted modernizations for Warners failed to jell, and the 2002 Thanks for Bringing Love Effectually Again was sadly diminished. With an artist as restless and prolific every bit Ray Charles, nevertheless, it'south never that simple -- the Leon Russell and Paul Simon titles that climax G&S were done for Warners. Anyone who takes time to listen can find favorites in unlikely places -- such equally the ancient standard "By the Light of the Argent Moon" on 1966'south surprisingly R&B Ray's Moods; or the "Canvas Abroad" on 1975's Renaissance wickeder than Etta James'; or the great skillful time he has sharing "Salve the Bones for Henry Jones" with Lou Rawls and Milt Jackson on 1988'south Just Between United states. Perhaps if some taskmaster had compelled Ray Charles to channel his genius, he would accept made still more wonderful records. But they wouldn't be as unpredictable -- or, therefore, as wonderful -- as what he produced on his own. That'southward a terrific merchandise-off.

Rolling Rock, July 8, 2004

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Source: https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/music/charles-rs.php

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