The Genius of Ray Charles

The Genius of Ray Charles
Studio album by Ray Charles
Released October 1959
Recorded May 6 and June 23, 1959
at 6 West Recording in New York City on Ampex 3 track.
Genre Swingin' pop,[1] traditional pop,[2] rhythm and blues[3]
Length 37:58
Label Atlantic
Producer Nesuhi Ertegün, Jerry Wexler
Ray Charles chronology
What'd I Say
(1959)		 The Genius of Ray Charles
(1959)		 Ray Charles in Person
(1960)

The Genius of Ray Charles is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Ray Charles, released in 1959 by Atlantic Records. The album eschewed the soul sound of his 1950s recordings, which fused jazz, gospel, and blues, for swinging pop with big band arrangements.[1] It comprises a first half of big band songs and a second half of string-backed ballads.[4] The Genius of Ray Charles sold less than 500,000 copies and charted at number 17 on the Billboard 200.[1] "Let the Good Times Roll" and "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Cryin'" were released as singles in 1959.[5]

Composition

Genius marked the first time he worked within the setting of a traditional pop singer - he cut six songs with a studio big band and six with a string orchestra - and it was also his first full-length foray into the standards songbook.

“
”

— Will Friedwald[2]

The album showcased Charles' breakout from rhythm and blues and onto a broader musical stage. Atlantic Records gave him full support in production and arrangements. As originally presented, the A side of the album featured the Ray Charles band with David "Fathead" Newman supplemented by players from the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands, and arrangements by Quincy Jones.

The B side of the original album consists of six ballads with arrangements by Ralph Burns and a large string orchestra. Charles's performance of "Come Rain or Come Shine", a song identified with Frank Sinatra, brought public attention to his voice alone without the "distractions" of his soulful piano and his snappy band.

Each side contains a tribute to Louis Jordan with two songs he had hits with "Let the Good Times Roll" and "Don't Let the Sun Catch you Cryin′".

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[6]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[7]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[8]

In a contemporary review, Joe Goldberg of the American Record Guide panned the arrangements as "hopelessly banal and inadequate, saved only" by the piano playing of Charles, who "comes through beautifully", and felt that only the last three songs give the album "its importance". He called "Am I Blue?" the album's highlight and "almost unbearably poignant, with the same feeling of deep sensibility transcending limited vocal equipment that can be heard on Walter Huston's recording of 'September Song', or Adolph Green's of 'A Quiet Girl'."[9]

In a retrospective review for Allmusic, music critic Scott Yanow wrote that "Charles' voice is heard throughout in peak form, giving soul to even the veteran standards."[6] In a 1990 review of its CD reissue, Lloyd Sachs of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that The Genius of Ray Charles is "one of the all-time great albums. But it is not, alas, one of all the all-time great CDs. The sound is extremely harsh, exaggerating the partially hidden flaws of the original ... Still, the glory of Charles' singing and the ace arrangements ... have a way of breaking down resistance."[4] In 2000, Q magazine included The Genius of Ray Charles in their list of the "Best Soul Albums of All Time" and wrote that it "finds the great man swinging, emoting, cajoling and laughing his way through a selection of standards that he makes his own ... it exudes pure class."[10]

In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked The Genius of Ray Charles number 263 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[1] In a 2004 review for the magazine, Robert Christgau praised producers Jerry Wexler and Nesuhi Ertegun for persuading "five different arrangers into the subtlest charts of Charles' career." Christgau asserted that "Charles tried many times, but except for Modern Sounds, he never again assembled such a consistent album in this mode."[11] In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), critics J. D. Considine and Michaelangelo Matos said that it is "perhaps the most important of [Charles'] albums for Atlantic", because it "introduces the musical approach he would follow for much of the '70s." They argued that, instead of pursuing the contemporary sounds of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, or swing era big bands, Charles played a "curious hybrid of the brassy R&B of his pop-oriented recordings and the showy shmaltz favored by the era's middle-of-the-road acts." However, they cautioned listeners that the album was "abysmally recorded, with frequent overmodulation muddying its brasher moments."[3]

Track listing

Side one
  1. "Let the Good Times Roll" (Sam Theard, Fleecie Moore) – 2:53
  2. "It Had to Be You" (Gus Kahn, Isham Jones) – 2:45
  3. "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (Irving Berlin) – 2:53
  4. "Two Years of Torture" (Percy Mayfield, Charles Joseph Morris) – 3:25
  5. "When Your Lover Has Gone" (Einar Aaron Swan) – 2:51
  6. "'Deed I Do" (Walter Hirsch, Fred Rose) – 2:27
Side two
  1. "Just for a Thrill" (Lil Hardin Armstrong, Don Raye) – 3:26
  2. "You Won't Let Me Go" (Bud Allen, Buddy Johnson) – 3:22
  3. "Tell Me You'll Wait for Me" (Charles Brown, Oscar Moore) – 3:25
  4. "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Cryin'" (Joe Greene) – 3:46
  5. "Am I Blue?" (Grant Clarke, Harry Akst) – 3:41
  6. "Come Rain or Come Shine" (Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen) – 3:42

Personnel

Side one

Side two

Other credits

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "263) The Genius of Ray Charles". Rolling Stone. New York. November 1, 2003. Archived from the original on June 15, 2009. Retrieved May 27, 2013.
  2. 1 2 Friedwald, Will (September 27, 2005). "Genius, Pure & Otherwise". The New York Sun. Retrieved May 27, 2013.
  3. 1 2 Considine & Matos et al. 2004, p. 155.
  4. 1 2 Sachs, Lloyd (February 15, 1990). "CD mars `Genius' by Charles". Chicago Sun-Times. p. 44. Retrieved May 27, 2013.
  5. ↑ "By Popular Demand! Ray Charles". Billboard: 25. December 21, 1959. Retrieved May 27, 2013.
  6. 1 2 Yanow, Scott. "The Genius of Ray Charles - Ray Charles". Allmusic. Retrieved May 27, 2013.
  7. ↑ Larkin 2006, p. 159.
  8. ↑ Considine & Matos et al. 2004, p. 154.
  9. ↑ Goldberg, Joe (February 1960). "Ray Charles. The Genius of Ray Charles". American Record Guide. 26: 491.
  10. ↑ "Best Soul Albums of All Time". Q. London: 134. May 2000.
  11. ↑ Christgau, Robert (July 8, 2004). "The Genius at Work". Rolling Stone. New York. Retrieved May 27, 2013.

Bibliography

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