“The Brightest Smile In Town”
Song by Ray Charles
Ray Charles’s terse and weepy performance on the magnificent “The Brightest Smile In Town”, released as a mere B-side of a single, came at a time when his record company ABC was still tallying up the dividends of his unexpected smash hits of the previous year from the two volumes of Ray’s Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music. The world now knew Ray as a dynamic and soulful interpreter of country music delivered in a saccharine, orchestral parcel. A record as bleak and immediate as “The Brightest Smile In Town”, released in the middle of the artist’s mega-popularity, served notice to Ray’s legions of new fans that there was much more to him than they may have known.
“The Brightest Smile In Town” was written by songwriters Barry de Vorzon and Bob Sherman, and, unusually by this time, ol’ Ray himself. The Genius never wrote much of the music he recorded after leaving Atlantic in 1959, but it may be his personal touch on this track that inspired such a heartbreaking performance.
An emotional rags to riches lament, the lyrics to “The Brightest Smile In Town” tell the tale of a man once joyously happy, unable to sing or even relate to the blues that others found so natural (“life was too good,” he notes with bitter hindsight)… until the woman addressed in the second person throughout – though she is surely no longer around to hear – took his bright smile and in the song’s famous image “turned it upside down”. The blues are bluer on this song because the singer isn’t just wallowing in his lowly state, he also has the swift and sudden fall from his formerly charmed life to stew over.
The band is in amazing form on this tune, melding their soft, delicate verses and brassy, aggrieved choruses with those scandalized and lonesome vocals from Ray. The affecting pathos found on those hit ersatz C&W LPs of 1962 is still here but in starker and even wearier form. Astute followers of Ray Charles who’d fallen in love with “I Can’t Stop Loving You” were fortunate indeed, finding that their hero could display such consistency of talent and expression across multiple genres. “The Brightest Smile In Town”, later covered by artists such as Tony Bennett and Gregg Allman, is a decided highlight of Ray’s 1960s career.
It’s a deft example of such heaviness and turmoil – listen to the way his voice keeps breaking when he sings “smile” as “…mmmile” like a bawling child – and all this for a non-album B-side. Songs like this are why he’s called The Genius.
Single releases
Listen to “The Brightest Smile In Town”
Get your own “The Brightest Smile In Town” on 45 or MP3 from Amazon. Or get the out-of-print complete ABC singles 5xCD box set.