RAY CHARLES – "I Can't Stop Loving You"

“Genius” is a bit of an albatross for the folks who have to bear it. It’s also a bit of a red rag to some of use, especially when applied to the flagbearers pf a new generation. It didn’t do Ian Curtis, or Kurt Cobain, much good either.

In other fields “genius” seems to be a label applied to those who are accomplished self-publicists (Stephen Fry, perhaps?) or to those who capture the public imagination for some reason not necessarily connected with their work. Albert Einstein fell into the latter category; real physicists know, and Albert would have been (and indeed was) the first to acknowledge, that brilliant as he was he was one brilliant mind among many working towards the same end. It was his world-weary mad-scientist look that people noticed. Many know that E=mc²; far fewer know what it signifies. I’d put Stephen Hawking in this category too.

As for Ray Charles, it would never occur to me to call him a genius of soul, because I don’t think of him as a soul singer. Oh, he could sing soul with the best of them. He could sing country too, and he could do blues. In fact I’d say he was completely sui generis; listen to a recording of Ray, whatever he’s singing and playing, and it’s unmistakeably Ray, and that’s his genius.

As for this record — it’s up there with the earliest records that I really liked and it can still thrill when I hear it. Is it country? Is it gospel? Is it simply Ray Charles weaving his special magic by just doing his thing? I think that’s it. I get much the same thrill when I hear Take These Chains From My Heart or Georgia On My Mind

Oh, and Ray was fallible out of his own world. One of the saddest, most painful things I’ve ever seen on a cinema screen was Ray Charles’s cameo in The Blues Brothers. Now that Aretha Frankin, she was quite the revelation as an actor! So sad the the Queen of Soul never had a number one for us to talk about.

I take your point about Ray’s music not quite belonging to him at times (at least, I think that is what you are getting at in the references to Sam Cooke and Roy Orbison). I think he was someone who never quite fitted into the simple picture that chart/pop audiences liked to have of music during the late 50s and early 60s. He wasn’t quite rock’n’roll, and he wasn’t a crooning type. Because of Elvis, we tend to think of white country artists fusing with rhythm and blues, but it also worked the other way. Ray Charles was not the only black artist to sing country (particularly Hank Williams songs) – for example Fats Domino released HWs’ “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” around the same time.

It probably happens throughout the history of these charts, but at that time there were certainly quite a few stars searching around for a style to either (a) maintain their income, or (b) do what they really wanted to do in an established genre or (c) create a new type of music from a blend of established styles. In most cases it was no doubt a combination of a, b and c. Thus, in the UK, Lonnie Donegan and Tommy Steele moved from skiffle or rock’n’roll into “music hall”, and Frankie Vaughan tried a range of styles, doing covers of artists as varied as LaVerne Baker, Max Bygraves and Edith Piaf. Maybe Ray Charles was doing nothing more than Frankie in maintaining career continuity (Sorry to compare a genius with a journeyman, but they were all in the same pop pond). Or maybe he wanted to create a new type of music. Whatever the reason, Ray usually performed pretty well. I didn’t see the 2004 film “Ray”; does it throws any light on this topic?

whoever came up with the title “genius + soul = jazz” is DEMONSTRABLY a genius!

Critic watch:

1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die, and 10,001 You Must Download (2010)
CMT (USA) – The 100 Greatest Songs of Country Music (2003) 49
Dave Marsh & Kevin Stein (USA) – The 40 Best of the Top 40 Singles by Year (1981) 35
Heartaches By the Number: Country Music’s 500 Greatest Singles (USA, 2003) 44
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (USA)- The Songs That Shaped Rock (Additions 2011)
Rolling Stone (USA) – The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004) 161
Rolling Stone (USA) – The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (Updated 2010) 164
The Recording Academy Grammy Hall of Fame Albums and Songs (USA)
Zig Zag (UK) – Gillett & Frith’s Hot 100 Singles (1975)
Giannis Petridis (Greece) – 2004 of the Best Songs of the Century (2003)
Grammy Awards (USA) – Record of the Year Nominee

Obviously incredibly pretty and incredibly competent but does it really need to be THREE YEARS LONG JESUS CHRIST [4/5 – 4]

(Comment is subtitled ‘The Entitlement Of Youth’)