When it comes to the great musicians of the mid-20th century, you have two kinds of vocalists: the people who make it sound like the world is a beautiful place, and the people who tell the truth. Ray Charles’ power comes from singing like the former and yet giving you the latter in bulk: he could croon with the best of them, but his music, at its best, is grimy as sin.
A musician who channels his blackness, his womanising, his drug use and his love for the Southern states into his music with equal aplomb, Charles was a virtuoso piano player, a cracking lyricist and a beautiful singer. He was also a complicated man who only kicked his heroin addiction by replacing it with weed and gin, and it is safe to say we wouldn’t have much of what made 20th-century music great without him.
Originally inspired by Nat King Cole, he once told the New York Times: "I woke up one morning and I said, 'People tell me all the time that I sound like Nat Cole, but wait a minute, they don't even know my name.’” The distinctive style he developed not only secured his place among the musical greats, but inspired everyone from Aretha Franklin to Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder to Van Morrison.
As with many great artists at this time in history, while Charles produced some phenomenal albums it is often in his individual songs – and covers of classics – that you can quickly and easily see what he’s all about. Some songs are hard to place, others impossible to track down, but all are worth the journey (and if anyone can find his duet with Sarah Vaughan, we'd be ever so grateful for the link). So, in case you wanted to get reacquainted with one of the greats, we dove into his archives to find the familiar and forgotten songs that tell you exactly the kind of musician he is.
1. ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’ (from Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music)
Charles never strayed away from orchestration, but ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’ is the epitome of what Charles does best. Where, often – on ‘Georgia On My Mind’, for example – the orchestration matches the romance of the lyrics, here it feels wildly at odds with their sadnesss. Originally a country hit for Don Gibson in 1957, the song was featured on one of Charles’ best albums, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, in 1962. The melodic pining of the original is here replaced with a man distraught, against a plaintive, angelic choir. The song is also used at the climax of Metropolis, the 2001 anime adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s manga, which was inspired by the 1927 silent film of the same name. There, that combination of grandeur and sadness gives it the feeling of listening to the final radio broadcast at the end of the world. It is, truly, astonishing music.
2. ‘Unchain My Heart’ (from Ray Charles Greatest Hits)
Some of Charles’ best songs are when he dips his toes into the world of lounge and bossa nova. There’s ‘Heartbreaker’ on his 1958 album Yes Indeed!, or his swinging instrumental version of ‘One Mint Julep’ which reached No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1961. But ‘Unchain My Heart’ is just so astonishingly good, it blows all the others out of the water. A song, ostensibly, about a man who’s addicted to his woman, it was written by Bobby Sharp during his drug addiction, and performed by Ray Charles in the midst of his own. As bleak as its subject matter can be, like Bowie’s ‘Sound and Vision’ many years later, this song absolutely slaps.
3. ‘Ain’t But The One’ with Aretha Franklin (from Rare & Unreleased Recordings From The Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul)
Ray Charles has done a lot of duets in his time, but some of his best are undoubtedly with Aretha Franklin. There’s their duet on ‘Georgia On My Mind’, followed by their performance on ‘It Takes Two To Tango’, on The Midnight Special in 1975; there’s the moment Franklin summons him from the crowd for a reprise of ‘Spirit in the Dark’ during her iconic three-night stint at the Fillmore West in 1971. But perhaps their best is one that didn’t emerge until 2007, when Atlantic released it on an album of unreleased and rare Franklin apocrypha. Lord knows why this song never saw the light of day, but it is truly glorious, allowing Charles to go full gospel without ever trying to overshadow his singing partner (not that that's an easy feat).
4. ‘I’ve Got A Woman’ (from Ray Charles At Newport)
‘I’ve Got A Woman’ – maybe Charles’ best-known song, in part thanks to it being sampled in Kanye West’s ‘Gold Digger’ – isn’t hard to come by. If you’re looking for an easily digestible two minutes 50 of great R&B, go back to the original, which you can find on his eponymous first album with Atlantic. But, in the name of showing his virtuosity as a musician, I also recommend his version performed at the Newport Jazz Festival and released in 1958. At 6:25 it’s filled to the brim with flourishes and twists that weren’t on the single – but boy, is it fun.
5. ‘Georgia On My Mind’ (from The Genius Hits The Road)
So beloved is ‘Georgia On My Mind’ in its namesake region that, in 1979, it became the official song of the state. Charles was born in Georgia, but he didn’t create the song: it was originally written by Hoagy Carmichael and his roommate Stuart Gorrell, and it reached the top 10 in 1931, performed by Frankie Trumbauer. But it’s Charles’ version that will outlive all that preceded and succeeded it, thanks to that sweeping score and a performance full of nostalgia, love and devotion. It was also his first song to go to No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
6. ‘What’d I Say' (from Ray Charles in Person)
The first bars of ‘What’d I Say,’ leading into Ray Charles’ hoarse plea, "Hey mama, don't you treat me wrong/Come and love your daddy all night long”, is truly one of the great song openings. While the recording that opens the album of the same name is iconic, it is designed to replicate the electricity of seeing Charles live – down to the recorded sounds of disappointment when he seems to pack up, followed by call and response with those in the studio. But this song – Charles’ first top 10 hit – doesn’t need to be simulated. The version on Ray Charles in Person captures exactly what it must have felt like to have heard this song in situ.
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7. ‘Shake A Tail Feather’ (from The Blues Brothers Soundtrack)
As easy as it might be to mention the song Ray Charles sings when he appears in The Blues Brothers – a huge movie you’ve absolutely seen – it is undeniable that this is the sort of performance that really shows you just how good Ray Charles was at slightly grungy, highly danceable rock and roll. The song was originally recorded and released by The Five Du-Tones in 1963, but Charles’ roll-call of classic 1960s dances is an iconic touch of his own making.
8. ‘Tell All The World About You’ (from What’d I Say)
Ray Charles’ canon of songs about women he’s fallen for might be one of his best subgenres. There’s ‘Hallelujah I Love Her So’, a more famous example of the same genre, which feels like perfect post-coital euphoria, or the up-tempo ‘Mary Ann’, which absolutely slaps all these decades later. But we can't help but love ‘Tell All The World About You’, a less familiar option, which is just two minutes of unending adoration. It's a stellar track on one of Charles’ most digestible albums, and Dusty Springfield’s version is the only other person’s to come close.
9. ‘Winter Wonderland’ (from The Spirit of Christmas)
Every great singer can usually claim one Christmas classic as the one they reinvented, and Ray Charles’ ‘Winter Wonderland’ is almost certainly his. Burned into our brains for its appearance in When Harry Met Sally, it opens sparsely on bells and that rich voice of his, before going full magmatic swing. Nobody’s made ‘frolic and play the Eskimo way’ sound quite so sordid, and that's why he's a genius.
10. ‘Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Cryin’ (from The Genius of Ray Charles)
The front half of Charles’ sixth album features a so-big-it’s-almost-unlistenable swing and big-band suite arranged by Quincy Jones and padded out with Duke Ellington and Count Basie’s bands. While the the naughtiness of how Charles tackles jazz standards is fun, it’s also meant that this critically tussled-over and commercially unsuccessful album is seen as a crucial step for Charles and a mistake for everyone else. Its second half, in which Charles plays with what would become a signature blend of mournful blues and schmaltzy orchestration, is more lauded. His tribute to Louis Jordan here, ‘Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Cryin' is truly beautiful – still punchy while also very sweet. For a subtler jazz record, Charles' The Genius After Hours – in particular his version of ‘Ain’t Misbehavin'' – is out of this world.
11. ‘The Long and Winding Road’ (from Volcanic Action of My Soul)
Charles’ albums post-Atlantic are harder to find in one single place, and it’s a shame, in part because it means finding his version of The Beatles’ ‘The Long and Winding Road’ isn’t an easy task. Charles covered a lot of Lennon and McCartney compositions – he’s well known for his ‘Yesterday’ and his ‘Imagine’, and his ‘Eleanor Rigby’ is a really fascinating take on the song – but, for our money, his mournful and gospel-infused take on ‘The Long and Winding Road’ is truly something else. So sad, so broken, so hopeful all at once. A later version, featuring the Count Basie Orchestra, is also a complete home run.
12. ‘Summertime’ feat. Cleo Laine (from Porgy and Bess)
You wouldn’t be wrong to say that we’ve had a fair few seminal versions of ‘Summertime’ over the years: the classic aria from the opera Porgy and Bess was reified by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, and given new life by Miles Davis, but there’s something about Ray Charles and Cleo Laine’s version – from an album of excerpts from the opera – that hits different. While most versions (rightfully) go sparse, this version is luscious and erotic. It makes you wish they'd done ‘I Loves You Porgy’ too, but we can't have everything.
13. ‘Hit The Road Jack’ (from Deluxe: Greatest Hits)
One of Charles’ best-known songs, and for good reason. Not only was it No. 1 for two weeks, and not only did it win a Grammy, but it also dives deep into Charles’ ability to turn his love of women – for better and for worse – into great music. The voice singing in opposition to him belongs to Margie Hendrix, one of his backing group, The Raelettes, and the mother of one of his (many) children.
14. ‘That Lucky Old Sun’ (from Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul)
Charles’ music was unafraid to explore the poverty and hardships of life for black people in America. There are a few key examples of it in his repertoire – ‘Busted’, a version of the Harlan Howard song about a poor, cash-strapped farmer, is particularly delightful – but ‘That Lucky Old Sun’ has something about it that sets it apart. Sung by someone toiling in the heat of the magnificent but uncaring sun, it feels like one of Charles’ angriest vocal performances, perfectly juxtaposed by that familiar, sweeping score of choral voices and strings.
15. ‘Drown In My Own Tears’ (from Ray Charles)
On Ray Charles’ eponymous 1957 album, there are two very similar ballads: one is ‘A Fool For You’, which has been covered by the likes of Van Morrison, Otis Redding and Michael Jackson over the years. The other is ‘Drown In My Own Tears’, which for our money slightly pips ‘A Fool For You' to the post in the category of Ray Charles ballads about lost love. With that opening growl and the gloomy rainfall of the Raelettes' backing vocals, it is just the perfect description of a broken heart.
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