“Gee, Baby Ain’t I Good To You”

Ray Charles dips back into his own past on a 1967 cover of “Gee, Baby Ain’t I Good To You” from his Listen LP, playing and singing in a style very reminiscent of the earliest years of his career twenty years previously, when he was closely copying the stylings of his hero Nat King Cole.

“Gee, Baby Ain’t I Good To You” was written in 1929 by Andy Razaf, whose family had left Madagascar for America, and Don Redman of West Virginia. The King Cole Trio had a hit with it in 1944, just four years before young Ray Charles began playing piano and singing in a smooth, warm croon modeled after Cole himself.

Having explored raucous R&B, sweeping and orchestral “country” music, and instrumental jazz in the ensuing years, it’s nice to hear Ray Charles show that he still loved the old ways. For the gently affable “Gee, Baby Ain’t I Good To You” he returns to his Cole-esque tenor and stripped-down combo sound. He utilizes an odd kind of funky enunciation for each line, reveling in and exaggerating the sound of every consonant. Listening to it, you can almost see his cheek muscles getting an especial workout.

Ray’s version of “Gee, Baby Ain’t I Good To You” is sweetened somewhat by a gentle string section that ebbs and flows during some parts of the performance, as when he embarks on one of his patented virtuoso piano solos which gives way to a squawking muted-trumpet. Further bringing back the spirit of the 1940s.

Tucked away as the penultimate song on Side 2 of Listen, “Gee, Baby Ain’t I Good To You” didn’t get the attention it deserved at the time of the album’s release, but modern listeners can now give the song the consideration it deserves. It shows that Ray remembered his roots, still loved and identified with them, and could still make smooth, happy blues music as good as anyone in the game.

Listen to “Gee, Baby Ain’t I Good To You”

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