Library Rock's Backpages

Ray Charles: Thanks for Bringing Love Around Again (Crossover)

Michael Lydon, Rock's Backpages, September 2002

RAY CHARLES' NEW CD, Thanks for Bringing Love Around Again – his first since Strong Love Affair in 1995 – opens with 'What'd I Say', his 1959 smash hit transformed by drum machines playing hip-hop beats and synthesizers laying down big band riffs, but still remarkably like the 43-year-old original: Ray singing and playing up a storm, and the Raelets squealing their delight at making musical love with the Genius. Even if you were born twenty years after its first go round, the new 'What'd I Say' will get you up and dancing.

Total word count of piece: 918

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