Ray Charles

Ray Charles – Live In Concert (1965) [APO Remaster 2012]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 41:08 minutes | Scans included | 1,66 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 778 MB

This classic recording by Ray Charles includes 12 vintage tracks performed to perfection. His voice is in great shape, and the recording by Wally Heider is a marvel for its day; all the instruments are placed nicely with Charles’ voice out front where it belongs. There’s a slinky version of “Hallelujah I Love Her So,” the musicians creating nice little changes behind Charles’ soulful nuances. The singer tells us Miss Lillian Ford of the Raelets “helps out” on “Don’t Set Me Free”; it’s a duet and a nice change of pace. Rick Ward’s tacky liner notes fail to say who is backing up the singer at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, except for David “Fathead” Newman credited with the tenor solo on “Swing a Little Taste,” the opening track. Not to be confused with the 1973 re-release Ray Charles Live, which is comprised of 1958 and 1959 concerts, this album is called Live in Concert, and is Charles in Los Angeles after a Japanese tour in 1964. “What I’d Say” and a nice version of “Margie” are here, along with a six-minute take on “I Gotta Woman.” For the finale he has the Ray Charles Choir come out to help close the show with a marching-band version of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” The 12 tracks are priceless Ray Charles, especially the reinvention of “You Don’t Know Me,” stirringly different from his timeless hit version but just as impressive. Excellent photos by Ray Hearne, especially the cover profile.

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Ray Charles – Genius Loves Company (2004)
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 51:34 minutess | Scans included | 3,38 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,03 GB

Genius Loves Company is the last studio album Ray Charles completed before his death in June 2004. Prior to this, the last studio album he released was Strong Love Affair in 1996, which was a stab at modern pop, filled with new songs and given an adult contemporary sheen. It was not one of his most distinctive efforts, even when judged against his latter-day albums, and it disappeared not long after its release. Charles left Warner and, years later, signed with Concord, who released Genius Loves Company, which had a decidedly different approach than the all-modern Strong Love Affair. As the title acknowledges with a wink, this is a duets album, which may be a little commonplace as far as latter-day superstar albums go but is still a step up from his previous studio album since it puts Ray Charles in a comfortable, relaxed situation that plays to his strengths. Instead of trying to put Charles in a modern setting, producers John Burk and Phil Ramone (Burk helmed seven of the album’s tracks, Ramone is responsible for the other five, and their work fits together seamlessly) go for a clean retro setting with a few guitars, synths, and a rhythm section, occasionally dressing it with an orchestra or some strings. In other words, apart from the glistening production, it’s not far removed from any of Charles’ crossover records from the ’60s, and he’s also given a strong set of songs, largely familiar pop classics, from “Fever” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” and “Crazy Love.” His duet partners are fairly predictable — classy newcomers like Norah Jones and Diana Krall, but also old stalwarts like Elton John, B.B. King, Johnny Mathis, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, and the ubiquitous Willie Nelson (who has never sounded older than he does here on “It Was a Very Good Year”) — but they’re also reliable, never overshadowing Ray yet never shrinking in his shadow either; in short, it sounds more like a real duets album than most superstar duet records. The end result is modest, friendly, laid-back, and pleasing, one that remains faithful to Charles’ music while sounding relatively fresh. It may not be weighty enough to be a career-capping masterpiece, but it’s sweet enough to be an appropriate final album — which is far more than can be said of Strong Love Affair, or any of the other albums he cut in the ’80s or ’90s for that matter.

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Ray Charles – The Genius Sings The Blues (1961) [MFSL 2010]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 33:53 minutes | Scans included | 1.38  GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 391 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 2049

Down-home, anguished laments and moody ballads were turned into triumphs by Ray Charles. He sang these songs with the same conviction, passion, and energy that made his country and soul vocals so majestic. This has not turned up in the reissue bins.

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Ray Charles – The Genius Of Ray Charles (1959) [MFSL 2012]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 38:29 minutes | Scans included | 1,54 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 629 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 2055

The Genius of Ray Charles is a 1959 album by Ray Charles. In 2003, the album was ranked number 263 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Some players from Ray Charles’ big band are joined by many ringers from the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands for the first half of this program, featuring Charles belting out six songs arranged by Quincy Jones. “Let the Good Times Roll” and “Deed I Do” are highlights, and there are solos by tenorman David “Fathead” Newman, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, and (on “Two Years of Torture”) tenor Paul Gonsalves. The remaining six numbers are ballads, with Charles backed by a string orchestra arranged by Ralph Burns.

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Ray Charles – The Genius After Hours (1961) [MFSL 2014]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 38:48 minutes | Scans included | 1,56 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 391 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 2073

Taken from the same three sessions as The Great Ray Charles but not duplicating any of the performances, this set casts Charles as a jazz-oriented pianist in an instrumental setting. Brother Charles has five numbers with a trio (three songs have Oscar Pettiford on bass) and jams on three other tunes (“Hornful Soul,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” and “Joy Ride”) with a septet arranged by Quincy Jones; solo space is given to David “Fathead” Newman on tenor and alto and trumpeter Joseph Bridgewater. Fine music — definitely a change of pace for Ray Charles.

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Ray Charles – Genius + Soul = Jazz (1961) [Analogue Productions Remaster 2012]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 Stereo > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 36:50 minutes | Scans included | 1,49 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 772 MB

One of the best early-’60s examples of soul/jazz crossover, this record, like several of his dates from the period, featured big-band arrangements (played by the Count Basie band). This fared better than some of Charles’ similar outings, however, if only because it muted some of his straight pop aspirations in favor of some pretty mean and lean, cut-to-the-heart-of-the-matter B-3 Hammond organ licks. Most of the album is instrumental and swings pretty vivaciously, although Charles does take a couple of vocals with “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town” and “I’ve Got News for You.” Yet one of those instrumentals, a cover of the Clovers’ “One Mint Julep,” would give Charles one of his most unpredictable (and best) early-’60s hits.

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Ray Charles and Count Basie Orchestra – Ray Sings Basie Swings (2006) [Reissue 2007]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 48:25 minutes | Scans included | 2,95 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 979 MB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound | Telarc # SACD-63679

Ray Sings, Basie Swings, huh? Hmm, well, yes and no. You see, the story goes something like this. In 2005, Concord Records exec John Burk, who produced Ray Charles’ superb late-career, Grammy-winning Genius Loves Company, found a reel of tape simply labeled “Ray/Basie.” Upon further analysis, it was determined that the 1973 recording featured Ray Charles backed by his own band — Count Basie and his band had actually recorded earlier that day. Charles’ vocal was exceptionally prominent in the mix and at first it was thought that this potentially momentous discovery would prove unable to bear fruit. But then Burk brainstormed and decided to bring the current Count Basie Orchestra — whose leader died in 1984 — into the studio to lay tracks behind Charles’ vocals. So there’s no Basie on Ray Sings, Basie Swings, but that’s merely a technicality, because there is some great music. Charles was in fine form vocally on this mix of remakes of his early ABC-Paramount-era hits and then-recent material. The consecutive reworkings of “Busted,” “Cryin’ Time,” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” three of his defining Top Ten hits of the early ’60s, are given brassy, bluesy treatments here, and standards ranging from Oscar Hammerstein II’s “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” to the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road” are transformed in Charles’ hands. The set-closing “Georgia on My Mind,” as close to a signature song as Charles had, is given a tender, minimalist reading, but the track preceding it, “Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma,” picked up from the folk-pop singer Melanie, is quite possibly the album’s highlight. It’s appeared on other Ray Charles compilations before, but the gospelized, testifyin’ version featured here has got to be the liveliest take on that song anyone’s ever devised. So, yeah, there’s no Count Basie to be found here, but his namesake orchestra does him proud. For one of those postmortem studio patch jobs that owes as much to technology as talent, it’s a fine addition to the Ray Charles oeuvre, as long as one can get past the semi-false advertising of its title.

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