We all know what the music of Ray Charles has meant to the masses; a simple glance at the Billboard charts can tell us that. On a more personal basis, each of us can testify to his or her own intimate, emotional connection to Ray's songs. But let's not bare our souls. 

Let's talk about the effect Ray Charles and his music has had on subsequent singers and musicians over the past some odd 50 years. Those who influenced Ray have been well documented. And some might say too well documented on the keys of this very computer. But, oh, what the hell, let's go through it one more time.

During his youth in Florida, Ray listened to a wide range of performers, from Louis Jordan to The Grand Ole Opry, from Art Tatumto Artie Shaw. His first trio recordings were heavily influenced by the King Cole Trio and Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, featuring Charles Brown. As he matured as an artist, Ray's Swing Time and Atlantic recordings kept a record of his growth -- and of who was informing his work at any given point. Pianists Sonny Thompson and Horace Silver come to mind. So do singers Guitar Slim and Alex Bradford, as the deep blues and gospel hues began to show up on his palate. 

Once Ray found his own voice and his own instrumental sound, the music world took notice. Along with Horace Silver, Ray led the "Soul Brother" movement in the field of modern jazz, adding the touch of blues and gospel that put the term "funky" on everyone's lips.

Ray's band members, too, have had their followers. Don Wilkerson and David Newman led the resurgence of the Texas tenor sound, paving the way for King Curtis and others. When Hank Crawford switched from baritone to alto sax, he opened the door for David Sanborn, Tom Scott, and virtually every sax soloist who followed him stylistically.

Suddenly, the intellectual explorations that bebop started in the '40s were joined by the emotional explorations of the younger guys. Milt Jackson, Ray Bryant, Wynton Kelly, and Bobby Timmons with Cannonball Adderley were only a few of the jazzmen turned loose by the Ray Charles style. Pop vocalists were quick to pick up on Ray's songs: Peggy Lee, Harry Belafonte, and Sammy Davis, Jr., all recorded Ray's tunes. Jo Stafford, who might have been the first, cut "I've Got A Woman" as "I Got A Sweetie."

In the field of rhythm & blues, artists from the famous (Little Stevie Wonder) to the obscure (Prince La La and Alvin Robinson) found Ray to be a major source of inspiration. The late pianist Richard Tee cited Ray as his prime influence, although Tee's style went deeper into the church, as did that of Aretha Franklin, whose version of "Drown In My Own Tears" still retains the mark of Ray. Marvin Gaye's vocal style owes much to Ray Charles. And early '60s New Orleans performers like Jessie Hill, whose "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" is a sideways "What'd I Say," as well as Allen Toussaint, Ernie K-Doe, and Chris Kenner were definitely listening to the Atlantic Ray Charles. 

Many rock 'n' rollers, starting with Elvis, who did a version of "I've Got A Woman" on his first album, were deeply into Ray Charles. Dr. John, Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers, and Leon Russell are direct descendants, while the more indirect would include Eddie Cochran, Billy Joel, and Richard Manuel, who, when the Band was still known as the Hawks, used to do a letter-perfect "Georgia On My Mind."

The Ray Charles influence shows up a little more tenuously in the British rockers, such as Elton John, Georgie Fame, and Steve Winwood.It is most obvious in the singing of Joe Cocker, who covered Ray's records of "Drown In My Own Tears" and "Sticks And Stones." 

In the country field, the Everly Brothers did a nice cover of "Leave My Woman Alone" and Willie Nelson's version of "Georgia On My Mind" follows the melodic changes Ray made in the original song. Ronnie Milsap began his professional life as a Ray Charles clone. 

These and a thousand other artists, both great and schlocky, have, at the very least, done "Georgia" or "What'd I Say" in their acts and on records. Ray forced us all to dig a little deeper into our hearts and souls when addressing any piece of material. It is probably safe to say that there is no area of popular music that has not been altered by the genius of Ray Charles.

-- by Billy Vera
 

It is not for nothing that Atlantic Records chief honchos, Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler dubbed him The Genius. Even then, in the late 50s, when he was not yet thirty years old, his revolutionary combining of influences was considered nothing less than astonishing.  Growing up blind, his tastes in music were not confined by the usual visual boundaries, like race, for example. If he liked something he heard, he liked it, and that was that. For him, there were no restrictions based on what a young black man from Florida was supposed to like. So, if he liked Benny Goodman or Frank Sinatra or the Grand Ol' Opry as much as he liked Louis Jordan and Nat King Cole, so be it. And no one was going to tell him otherwise.

Because he began his recording career at such a young age and so unformed, the public got to see him finding his way toward who he was. On the Swing Time label, his earliest recording affiliation, he is still infatuated with the sounds of the King Cole Trio and with Charles Brown, at first working in that same piano, guitar and bass trio context. On one session, he is even accompanied by two erstwhile King Cole Trio members, guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Johnny Miller. Before leaving Swing Time, he will begin working with the small band with a front line of horns that will become his predominant palette for the next seven years at Atlantic.

During this period, he will incorporate various influences, the raw blues singing of Guitar Slim, the gospel rasp of Alex Bradford, the piano licks of Horace Silver and Sonny Thompson, the hard bop predilections of his horn section, and mix them all together to invent what would become known as Soul.  Once he found his own ìthing, he applied it to any style of music that struck his fancy, including a roaring take on country star Hank Snow's I'm Moving On, which served as a harbinger of things to come, namely his album, a couple of years later, of Modern Sounds In Country & Western.

His last Atlantic album was only radical when you consider the artist and his work that preceded it. The leap from gospel, blues,hard bop. and small band R&B to an album of pop standards and little known blues ballads featuring a big band and a full orchestra was a wide one.  Many black artists, from Billy Eckstine to Billie Holiday to Charlie Parker, had recorded with strings, but the juxtaposition of such a rough, soulful voice against a lush orchestra was something entirely new.

Ray Charles was now a pop stylist in the grand tradition of Bing Crosby, who under the tutelage of Decca chief Jack Kapp, had gone from a hip jazz singer to interpreter of every kind of music, from cowboy tunes to Irish melodies to Hawaiian folk ditties. Like Crosby, Ray would make many styles of music his own, and carry them all to the masses.

From the 1959 album The Genius of Ray Charles, Rhino has chosen the Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer standard Come Rain Or Come Shine, from the stage production St. Louis Woman and a #17 hit in 1946 for Margaret Whiting. Don't Let The Sun Catch You Cryin',a hit for Louis Jordan, was written by the underappreciated Joe Greene, who wrote many tunes for Stan Kenton, including hits for all three of the maestroís girl singers, Anita O'Day (And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine), June Christy (Soothe Me) and Chris Connor (All About Ronnie).

Ray's first album for ABC-Paramount was The Genius Hits The Road, a mix of "place" songs, including Al Jolson's 1924 #1 smash, California, Here I Come and Glenn Miller's Chattanooga Choo-Choo, from the movie It Happened In Sun Valley, and said to be the very first gold record.

From Ray's 1964 LP, Sweet & Sour Tears, come After My Laughter Came Tears, a #1 hit for Cliff Ukelele Ike Edwards in 1928, and You've Got Me Crying Again, which charted in 1933 for both Bing Crosby and Hal Kemp and was revived in the early 60s by Joe Williams.

Paul Whiteman's 1929 hit, Without A Song, heard here in it's edited-for-45 version, was introduced in the Broadway show, Great Day. Tears, a #6 hit for Sam Ash in 1919 and revived in 1931 by Rudy Vallee, was included on Ray's album, Crying Time.

We have four tunes from 1967's Ray Charles Invites You To Listen. Ray returns to the well of Jolson for Alís #1 You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Wanna Do It)from 1913. Totally forgotten today, Gene Austin was a huge star n the 20s. Ray tackles his She's Funny That Way.

Although it was introduced in the 1938 Broadway show, Right This Way, I'll Be Seeing You is best remembered as the quintessential World War II favorite, as recorded by Crosby and by Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey. Barbra Streisand introduced People when she starred at Broadway's Winter Garden in Funny Girl, the story of Fannie Brice.

Not to be confused with the similarly titled Beatles tune which Ray had already made his own, Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach's Yesterdays was a 1933 hit for Leo Reisman. Yours, from a Latin melody, charted in 1941 for both Jimmy Dorsey and Xavier Cugat.

Having charted with Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby, Ray took another page from the Lennon/McCartney songbook with The Long And Winding Road, on his 1971 LP, Volcanic Action Of My Soul. The following year, on Through The Eyes Of Love, he finally got around to the Gershwin brothers' wonderful standard, Someone To Watch Over Me, from the 1926 Broadway musical Oh Kay, and a #2 hit in its day for Gertrude Lawrence, who sang it in the show, George Olsen at #3 and George Gershwin himself at #17.

Ray returned to the Gershwins in a big way, recording their jazz opera, Porgy & Bess, for an 1976 album with singer Cleo Laine for RCA Victor. From that coupling come ìI Got Plenty OíNuttiníî and the classic Summertime. Yet another by George and Ira is How Long Has This Been Going On, from the 1927 show Rosalie, which Ray cut, fifty years later, on his LP, True To Life.

So we see that Ray Charles, the Genius of Soul, is also a master pop interpreter, one who can take any song and render it palatable to the mass public. And, as such, weíre not wrong when we call him the greatest pop singer of his generation.
 

Billy Vera, 2002

I want to add to Billy Vera's excellent Ray Charles profile and relate that the term "Genius" originated from an incident that has been retold so often that one wonders if it is actually true.  I spoke with Ray Charles backstage at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in Hollywood back in 1960 and he confirmed the incident.   The story is that when he was doing the session for "I Got A Woman", it was being recorded in a studio where commericals were normally done, and his guitar player did not show up for the session.

Ray decided to do the session anyway, since they had paid for the time, so he did, for the first time ever, possibly, a bluse song with no guitar or harmonica, and scored a hit with it.  Interestingly, if you have an early copy of the song, even on 78RPM, and you listen closely, you can hear snippets of the people in the next studio doing a Coca Cola commercial. 

This incident, of course, caused people to begin calling him "The Genius", not only for that incident (which reinforced some opinions), but also his ability to take old traditional negro spirituals and gospel songs and, with the switching of one or two word, turn them into pop or blues songs.   Examples of this talent occured in "What'd I Say", "I Gotta Woman", "Lonesome Avenue", Hallelujah, I Could Love Her So", to name a few.

Years later, Theola Kilgore used the same formula to make a hit of "The Love Of My Man (God)" by substituting one key word.  Ray Charles is not the only accredited genius in the music business, but if you ever decided to photograph all of them, he would certainly be in the team picture, whether it is playing the alto sax, piano, organ, or vocalizing, and his reputation as "One Take Ray", who seldom does more than one take of a song in the studio, only adds to his legendary status among fellow artists.

It is my personal opinion that Ray Charles' gospel-style piano on the normally staid "America The Beautiful" was the best example of a merger of gospel piano, blues/jazz vocal, and traditional song that we are likely to ever hear in our lifetimes.

Enjoy him while you can because he won't be around forever, but his legend will live on..............................NATE