Ray Charles: Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

Ray Charles: Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

1962

ABC/Paramount Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Bye Bye Love  2. You Don't Know Me  3. Half as Much  4. I Love You So Much It Hurts  5. Just a Little Lovin' (Will Go a Long Way)  6. Born to Lose  7. Worried Mind  8. It Makes No Difference Now  9. You Win Again  10. Careless Love  11. I Can't Stop Loving You   12. Hey, Good Lookin'           

Again, I'm a bit out of my element here...I'm not really knowledgeable about Ray Charles, so I decided to look up a little bit of backstory on this album...Maybe give myself a bit of context before I discussed it...See, I bought this album for two reasons: 1. I wondered what Ray Charles playing country music would sound like... 2. The cover was so red that I had to own it...It was the only album I had ever seen that was redder than Weezer's red album... It turns out this is one of those situations where context completely changed my perception of an album....Here's my context-free opinion...This is me coming home after a trip to the record store, a 30-pack of Bud Light in one hand, an armful of Damned albums, Discharge singles and a copy of "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" in the other...I crack a beer, toss the Ray Charles on the turntable and think, "This is country music?!"    Where were the songs about Skoal imprints in yer tight-fittin' jeans? Where were the red solo cups?  ...or the mud on the tires? Where was the "Love it or Leave It" jingoism?! The sister fuckin'?!? The high illiteracy rates?  And isn't "Bye Bye Love" a rock n' roll song?! All I heard was big band/ dinner club music and Disney Soundtrack ballads...I did enjoy it in a dry martini/Sunday hor d'oeuvres  kind of way...Big, fat pillow music with pristine production...But there was no way around it. I considered this Grandpa music...It had never crossed my mind that this would have been a radical, controversial, downright groundbreaking album at the time... Cos guess what? Our Grandparents were in the middle of some shit! Apparently as recently as the 1960's the fact that a black man would cover an album of "white" music was a shocking proposition. "Oh, my! Ray Charles is singing a syrupy version of " I Love You So Much It Hurts "! What's this world coming to?! I think I'm going to faint?!" This seemingly benign collection of fluffy orchestral pop suddenly became an unwitting political statement and in this light "Worried Mind" is suddenly took on a whole new meaning.... But it turns out this was something that both black and white ears could both agree on. Folks of all colors united and sent this record to the top of the charts, helping to break down some of the racial barriers built into the heavily segregated music biz of the 1960's...And guess what? Ray didn't end up destroying the C&W genre...He ended up re popularizing it...So stick them corn-squeezin's in yer jug and drank 'em... So yea...There's a couple different ways to hear this...If you want to view it as an important historical document, that works...If you want to listen to this as a relaxing album of cool, chilled out music, that works too..Although my guess is that the only people who might not get this would be country fans, since it doesn't especially resemble any country music I've ever heard...No steel guitars, no banjos, no twang... But if you're interested in hearing Ray Charles in a more plush, sophisticated surroundings you'll probably dig this... Here's "Worried Mind" by Ray Charles...Have a great Friday Night everyone!