“A Bit Of Soul”
Song by Ray Charles
“A Bit Of Soul” can be used as demonstration of Ray Charles’s unending and effortless musical genius, especially from the 1950s era. Raucous and dynamic and compelling and fun, it was recorded in 1955 but pushed aside, never to be released. It finally saw the light of day in 1961, when Atlantic dug it up from the archives and put it on the A-side of a single.
Just think: Anyone else would be thrilled to have recorded this tune. For Ray, it was a throwaway.
“A Bit Of Soul” is an instrumental, and a short one at that. Just two minutes long, it’s divided into two very distinct halves – one cheerful, one screaming. It was written by Ray Charles, and to be honest is not anything from a songwriting perspective. It’s really just a thin skeleton on which the band hangs its meat. “A Bit Of Soul” is an instrumentalists’ showcase, not a work of art. A strange bifurcated performance, captured on tape and never to be repeated.
The Recording of “A Bit Of Soul”
The session that “A Bit Of Soul” was recorded at occurred in early April 1955, a shoehorned-in opportunity in the midst of a grueling tour schedule that Ray and his band were following. It was done not at a studio but at a radio station’s facilities in Miami. Given all this, the recording didn’t begin until just before dawn.
Four songs were recorded that morning: “A Bit Of Soul”, “This Little Girl Of Mine”, “A Fool For You”, and “Hard Times”. Listening to the three songs that aren’t “A Bit Of Soul” today, you can hear the rawness of Ray’s voice. The man was tired, his voice pushed to its limits. (This session came after a show earlier in the evening.) No wonder they did an instrumental.
“A Fool For You” and “This Little Girl Of Mine” became the two sides of Ray’s next single; “Hard Times”, like “A Bit Of Soul”, would be held back indefinitely until Atlantic put it on a single in 1961. (“Hard Times” was also on the compilation LP The Genius Sings The Blues that year; “A Bit Of Soul” obviously wouldn’t have fit on an album with that title, and the only place to hear it for the longest time was the 45.)
The Structure of “A Bit Of Soul”
The song opens with Ray’s piano, bobbing along good-naturedly. It’s a laid-back little shuffle, something to make you drop your defenses and lean in closer to get a better peek. It’s at the one-minute mark that suddenly things change; Ray’s horn section has something it wants to add.
A loud stab of brass pierces the air, and from then on “A Bit Of Soul” is a searing blaze of squawking notes and wailing trumpets and sax notes. Ray can barely be heard under all this, in fact; sometimes his busy piano runs poke out the edges but he seems happy to step aside and let someone else do the driving for a while.
The interplay between everyone is arresting, the wackiness of the song’s structure daring and unique. It’s short, and compositionally inconsequential, but “A Bit Of Soul” shows how, even after being up all night and too tired to sing, Ray Charles had versatile and rhythmic blues music almost literally dripping from his fingertips.
Single releases
Listen to “A Bit Of Soul”
Get your own “A Bit Of Soul” on 45 or MP3 from Amazon. Or get the complete Atlantic recordings 7xCD box set.