Junto Boys

RAY CHARLES -- LEGEND

I didn't blog last week deciding instead to take everything in and then expound. The one story I missed that was important was the passing of Ray Charles. I don't think any singer ever committed to a song the way he did. It was like his every last molecule was focused on the passion of that with which he was singing about. There were much better singers, but he performed a song in a way that you were sure it was about him. Sinatra was always given credit for phrasing a song well. Charles should be given credit for fully committing to the material like no one else.

The first time I heard him sing Georgia – I must have been quite young – I was moved by it. I didn’t realize that he was singing about a woman. I had thought he was just singing about the state. I guess it could be taken either way, but as I aged the passion in which he sang started to imply true love.

He brought the same excitement to anything he sang. When I hear “You don’t know me” I visualized him meeting and taking the hand of the woman he loves and I can see her misunderstanding his feelings. There was something real about his reaction to her nonchalance and his resignation that he would never have her.

Then the hard rockin’ “I got a woman” is a gigantic celebration of boy gets girl. It’s a simple song. His woman is good to him. The song is all in the singing. That ass clown Michael Bolton could never register the real feeling for a song like that. I’ve heard other versions that are fair, but Ray Charles seems to be living it.

“What I Say” has that great piano intro and then vocals that say little literally, but much in the way of blues. The song goes on and on and on and I think only Ray Charles could pull such a thing off. The song is so long that you have to turn the 45 over and hear part two on the other side.

I had wanted to see Ray Charles when I was in college, but no one was listening to that kind of music. Who would I have asked? I didn’t even own any of the records, but I had heard him sing on TV quite a bit.

After moving to Orlando I bought a 2-CD set of Ray Charles greatest hits and it was a big disappointment. All the songs were there in their originally recorded versions, but that turned out to be a minus. Sometimes the arrangements were all wrong for his brand of soul and the backup singers made some songs sound ridiculous. I realized that I had been hearing him sing these things live on TV with simple music and they were much better that way. He just throws so much of himself into a song that the old recordings make everyone else in the studio sound lackadaisical. I’d like to find a later album of these recording that were more bare-boned musically.

Luckily in June 2002 I got to see Ray Charles for a corporate event. The acoustics were horrible in the Convention Center, but he was his magical best. He ended with “America, America” and no song sung by anyone could ever make me feel as patriotic. He was much gray and needed to be helped on and off the stage, but I never would have thought he had just two short years remaining. The music will never die.