Music review: Ray Charles

This is only my third music review. Gosh, I have like seven days worth of music to go through on iTunes, without even venturing into my CD collection in the loft! (I’m not going to review it all, only my favourites – don’t be alarmed! I think that would be a blog in itself.)

I have quite a lot of “old” music in my collection, and a lot of it is American. Many albums first came out in the 50s and 60s, when the U.S. was developing its sound. I think Ray Charles is one of the great American classics. I’m going to ignore the fact he was blind, although that obviously adds to his talent. The guy was an exceptional pianist and musician. He basically invented modern soul music! This wasn’t the song I was going to feature in this music post, but this song was invented one evening during a live performance:

(The video is only audio, it’s the later studio recording not the original performance)

It is a testament not only to his talent, but to the talent of his band, that such music can be so easily created in front of a live crowd.

Charles had a lot of problems in his home life (although I’d be interested to see statistics on which musicians weren’t doing drugs in those days!), but I think his music has stood the test of time. Personally, one of my favourite songs isn’t one he wrote, it’s a song written by Hoagy Carmichael and covered a lot of times since it was written. That song is Georgia on my mind. Now the state song of Georgia, the song was actually written about a girl called Georgia (although the lyrics do fit the state too!). I love the twist that Ray Charles and his band put on the tune, and I love the tone of his voice. It just fits the melody well. Here’s a 1972 live performance for you: