About this website
ItsAllAboutRay.com exists to give Ray Charles his proper due, and to discuss his music as it exists on vinyl records. It’s an ongoing project for which I am regularly adding reviews of Ray’s songs and albums. (That’s why it isn’t complete yet!)
There is a generally-accepted version of the Ray Charles story, and it gets retold over and over: difficult upbringing, some big hits in the 1950s and early 1960s, then a long artistic quasi-decline during which he kept busy but fewer and fewer listeners were paying attention.
So goes the story. How much of it is really accurate?
I was first exposed to Ray’s music at a very early age because both of my parents were fans. In the late 1990s, now in my twenties, I bought the Genius And Soul 5-CD box set which contained most of the hits, plus lots of stuff I’d never heard. I never knew there was so much Ray!
It was a little intimidating, absorbing all the music on these five CDs. Genius And Soul was (and is) a great introduction to his career… but it didn’t tell the whole story, not by a long shot. Entire albums were left off of the box set, or were represented by maybe a single song. Twenty-two years of his career goes by in a flash on Disc 5.
Eventually I came to realize that the only way to understand Ray’s output was to listen to his singles and albums — all of them — on their own terms, each song in its originally intended context. I began buying copies of all of Ray’s LPs and singles.
I found, to my surprise and joy, that Ray Charles’s music was in fact fantastic until the end. Every album has its own distinct feeling. Lost and forgotten classics truly abound deep in his LPs and singles from all eras. And then there are those famous hits, as strong now as ever.
It is true that during much of the 1970s and 1980s, Ray Charles was not in vogue and didn’t have many hits. I believe this set the precedent for how modern listeners are “supposed” to feel about recordings from those years — this music was doomed to always be out of vogue, in stark contrast to his early classic hits, which have always been beloved. Ray’s career was roughly separated into two halves — the good stuff and the boring. This notion has become orthodoxy.
It has been thrilling and rewarding for me to shed these preconceptions by listening to the actual music, and not to self-appointed critics. I thought I knew Ray, but I really didn’t. I have found that even some basic details about his career differ from the sanctioned narrative. (For example, except for Friendship, his “1980s country albums” are not particularly country; they’re just Ray.)
The world of Ray Charles music — his orchestrations, his bands, his choices of songs, his mercurial exploration of styles, his breathtaking piano playing and always-intoxicating singing — was consistently compelling from his first recordings to his last. Public taste for his art rose and fell with the times, as it will, and he always acknowledged that he was in the business of making music for money — Ray Charles would perhaps have preferred bigger chart success at times. But he never compromised his muse for it. If that’s the definition of “soul”, then soul he is.
So what we have is a legacy of heartfelt, mature, riveting music, drawn from nearly all types of Americana and distilled through the genius of a desperately poor blind kid from rural Florida who somehow stayed true to himself through the most eventful and demanding life imaginable. Love, hate, anger, sadness, humor, comfort and hope radiate from Ray’s catalog. Forget the myth and listen to the music.
Why vinyl records?
I have chosen to structure this website around Ray Charles’s vinyl records, not CDs. I like to experience Ray’s music as it was first exposed to the world — first on 10″ 78 rpm discs, then on 7″ 45s and 12″ LPs.
I am neither anti-digital nor an audiophile, but I like the experience of holding an LP and watching it spin as I listen — the same way that listeners did when Ray’s music first fell into the hands and hearts of millions of fans all over the world. CDs and MP3s sound great but don’t give the accurate, original experience.
Surprisingly for an artist of this stature, CD reissues of Ray’s albums (and he always thought of albums as complete thematic packages) have been spotty and very poorly done. Many great albums have never seen a CD release. Others have been crammed together on disrespectful 2-on-1 discs, while others have had meaningless bonus tracks added — generally, already-available songs from other albums. (This is a problem with recent cheapo European vinyl reissues as well.)
So, records it is. And with the exception of one or two 45s from the 1970s, virtually all of Ray Charles’ many vinyl releases are easily found on places like eBay, cheap and in good condition.
No compilations
I have by and large ignored Ray Charles compilation albums. There have been dozens, and new ones appear all the time. Most are great (how could they not be?) but present the music out of context, and generally recycle the same 20 or so classic songs over and over. Even ambitious box sets, like Genius And Soul or The Complete Atlantic Recordings, can’t really scratch the surface of what’s waiting out there.
There are four exceptions to my no-compilations rule, which are four albums released by Atlantic that collected (out of order) his pre-LP singles:
- Ray Charles (1957)
- Yes Indeed! (1958)
- What’d I Say (1959)
- The Genius Sings The Blues (1961)
To date, only two albums that Ray released in his lifetime are totally unavailable on vinyl — the CD-only Strong Love Affair and Thanks For Bringing Love Around Again (1996 and 2002, respectively).
Ray was also a prolific releaser of 45 rpm singles, until the mid-1970s especially, and many of these contained one or two non-LP songs. Some of his biggest hits, in fact, were only available as singles and were never part of a new LP release (“Hit The Road, Jack” and “Unchain My Heart” for example).
And so this site is based on Ray Charles vinyl, and not on compilations. To get everything as originally released, you’ll be collecting lots of 78s, 45s, and LPs (and two CDs). It’s easy, and great fun, and can be done on the cheap for the most part. And the musical rewards are rich enough to change your life!
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