While cruising along the other day and listening to Willie’s Roadhouse on XM I heard the following song.
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Yes, Ray Charles singing Country music. Or at least his interpretation of a country classic originally sung by Buck Owens.
What’s up with that?
A little research was in order on my part.
Turns out that in 1962 Ray Charles produced an album in which he sang a number of country music classics which had been rearranged to suit his style of music. Which was not very different to what is now known as The Nashville Sound.
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music included the following songs,
- (from Wikipedia)
- Side one
- “Bye Bye Love” (Boudleaux Bryant, Felice Bryant) – 2:09
- “You Don’t Know Me” (Eddy Arnold, Cindy Walker) – 3:14
- “Half as Much” (Curley Williams) – 3:24
- “I Love You So Much It Hurts” (Floyd Tillman) – 3:33
- “Just a Little Lovin’ (Will Go a Long Way)” (Eddy Arnold, Zeke Clements) – 3:26
- “Born to Lose” (Frankie Brown, pseudonym of Ted Daffan) – 3:15
- Side two
- “Worried Mind” (Ted Daffan, Jimmie Davis) – 2:54
- “It Makes No Difference Now” (Floyd Tillman, Jimmie Davis) – 3:30
- “You Win Again” (Hank Williams) – 3:29
- “Careless Love” (Traditional, Arranged by Ray Charles) – 3:56
- “I Can’t Stop Loving You” (Don Gibson) – 4:13
- “Hey, Good Lookin’” (Hank Williams) – 2:
That’s some pretty impressive country music right there, folks. All done in Charles’s R&B and Jazz style.
So, how country was Ray Charles?
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Buck Owens, Ray Charles, a Steel Guitar. The only way it could be more country is if they were on a show like Hee Haw.
Oh, they were.
One last Country song from Ray Charles.
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Country, Pop, Blues, it’s all in the arrangement folks.
CMT used to have a show “Crossroads” that paired a country singer and a non-country singer. They had Ray and Travis Tritt one show. Man, that was a good show.
Read your site a lot, never commented. Figured this is as good a time as any. Ray Charles was heavily critisized about wanting to make a country album. He was told he would lose a lot of fans, and he figured (correctly it turns out) that he would get them back, and more from the country side. he was raised in the south so country music hasa always been around anyway. Mr. Charles was a musical genius and really knew what he wanted to do, that’s how he ended up owning his own masters, which just wasn’t done.
And I have theen the “Crossraods” episode a couple of times, it really was outstanding.
That’s all true from what I read. In part Charles wanted to expand the artistic freedom that he (and presumably other black musicians) would have and he picked a tradtionally non black genre with which to do it. It was risky and had the album failed his career would have suffered harm. “I can’t stop loving you” was slotted at #11 on the original album by his producer. It turned out to be a huge hit, perhaps his biggest.
Getting ownership of his masters after a three year period was also a huge change, one that gave him great control over his career.
Modern Sounds not only brought back Charles’s existing fans but opened his music up to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t have ever heard of him.
Thanks for reading and please comment any time you’d like.
🙂
Thanks a bunch for this post. I grew up in Bakersfield and my father was friends with Buck Owens for a long time. He was pretty devastated with Buck’s passing. I had the opportunity to meet Buck on a couple occasions and I attended his funeral. I even played a few shows at his venue, The Crystal Palace. He did more for the music scene in Bakersfield than anyone else that ever stepped foot on a stage there. Sadly, the country music scene there has died down to nearly non-existence. The “Bakersfield Sound” is pretty much a memory. Buck’s venue is the only real place that you can find good live Country music. And I use the word “good” loosely.
As far as Ray Charles goes, I grew up listening to him as my father absolutely loved his music. My dad was an accomplished musician that played piano in a very similar style to Ray. He toured with Chubby Checker for a number of years, long before I was born, obviously and actually had the opportunity to play a show with Ray Charles once. One of his biggest regrets is not getting a copy of the recording of that show.
He had a pretty serious stroke about 6 years ago that just about put a stop to his music playing. He doesn’t get out much anymore, but he still plays the hell out of his piano any chance he gets. I’ll have to get a hold of this album and give to him. I’m sure it will make his day.
Thanks again for posting this.
You’re welcome, and thank you for sharing some of your father’s musical history with us. The album is available as a MP3 download from Amazon, it’s probably also available on CD, but I didn’t check.