The Smiley Smile Message Board

I've been listening more and more to Brother Ray on Rhapsody. How does one man have so much talent? It's not fair! A Genius (yes, a capital G) of the highest order.

Is Rhapsody a label? I've got the "Birth Of Soul" box, covering the begining of his career at Atlantic. It's great, you can follow a trajectory where he starts out in a fairly restrained, imitative mold of what was popular in R&B at the time. Like alot of people, he loved Nat King Cole and followed the trail he was blazing, the jazz trio idea. But by the time you get to the middle of the first disc, he starts to take off, the "Ray Charles" starts to come out. On the second and third discs he's flat out untouchable. The guy was born to generate music, pure and simple. By the simple fact of who he was, how masterful an artist, even his lesser efforts, the ones I've heard from the seventies ("Ain't It So" was one), are still often not that bad; an uninspired Ray Charles is still drawing from the purest of musical wells.

I've always loved soulful female backing vocals too, so three cheers for the Raelettes. I wonder if they ever recorded on thier own, like Ike and Tina's Ikettes.

Rhapsody is an online music service.

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Smooooooooth!

Do you know way down ... way do-hown upon the Swanee, talkin bout the river...

I caught the Grand Ole Opry last night, and they had a tribute to Ray Charles.  It was hosted by Vince Gill, and Martina McBride & Travis Tritt sang some Ray Charles songs.  Michael McDonald did a couple too, and the best part was Ronnie Milsap showed up and apparently knew Ray a very long time, he sang a couple of Ray's songs (Ronnie is a blind pianist too). 

There's something about blind piano players...Charles, Milsap, Wonder, Tatum, Tristano, Shearing, Rodrigo...

Yeah, there is.  I guess since they're blind they can hear so much better, and a piano is an attractive instrument to them.

Ronnie said that when he was 20, he went to a Ray Charles concert, and wanted to meet Ray.  Finally, he talked a security guard or something into getting him back stage... I guess since he was blind he was able to milk that a little bit (no disrespect intended).  So, he meets Ray, and Ray actually had Ronnie play him a couple things that he had written.  He told Ray that he was at a crossroads in his life, and was either going to go into ________ (fill in the blank, I can't remember), or music.  Ray told him (after hearing him sing and play) that he had a lot of music in his heart, and if he was smart, he'd be a performer for a living.

So, Ronnie went on to be one of the best-selling country musicians of all time.  I think he's got like 30 number 1 country songs or something. 

He made a point of saying that not only were he and Ray good close friends for a long time, but that him and Ray shared a lot of 'technology', I guess I'd never thought of that.

He did the Ray Charles 'lean' in one of the songs too (lean way back off the piano stool, and hug yourself while you grin at the lights). 

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