Ray Charles

40 Years of Genius: Ray Charles

Retrospective by Pete Grendysa, Record Collectors' Monthly, November 1988

YOU CAN RUN to the mountains and you can hide out in a dingy jazz club in SoHo, but you can't escape Ray Charles. ...

Ray Charles and The Raelets In Concert

Live Review by Dave Godin, Blues & Soul, November 1970

THE ANNUAL concert featuring Ray Charles, his Orchestra and The Raelets is an event which usually draws S.R.O. crowds and this year was no exception. ...

Jerry Wexler: Aretha, She's Just Unbelievable

Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, January 1971

JERRY WEXLER is without doubt, one of the great producers who revolutionised Rhythm and Blues music in the 50's and 60's. ...

Ray Charles: 25 Years In Show Business (Atlantic)

Review by Charlie Gillett, Cream, March 1972

FOR MOST OF US, Ray Charles is a singer. Asked if he does anything else, we'll probably be able to rattle off a few other ...

Ray Charles

Live Review by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, November 1972

TO QUOTE the title of one of his famous Atlantic recordings, a virtually guaranteed event is the annual visit of the Ray Charles revue with ...

Ray Charles: Renaissance (London)

Review by Mick Brown, NME, 1978

TO SEE a Ray Charles album on the London label is to experience a flash of nostalgia. For in his greatest hour – the mid-1950s ...

Ray Charles: Love And Peace

Review by Penny Valentine, Melody Maker, October 1978

IT'S RARE FOR any artist to re-emerge successfully from a long period of musical sterility. Harder still, somehow, for black musicians, whose problems – brought ...

Thorns In Velvet: Fats Domino and Ray Charles at the Capital Jazz Festival

Live Review by Mick Brown, Guardian, The, 1984

AMONG the collection of venerable antiques paraded for this year’s Capital Jazz Festival – couldn’t the organisers find anybody of note under the age of ...

Rapping with Ray Charles

Interview by Robert Gordon, Interview, 1992

IN THE 1950s, Frank Sinatra tagged Ray Charles "Genius," an appropriate nickname for one of American music's most innovative figures. Charles brought a sophistication to ...

Charles The First

Interview by Robert Gordon, Q, March 1992

Ray Charles did soul music a big favour one day: he invented it. In 1992, the blind maestro they call "The Genius" is still going ...

Ray Charles: Genius And Soul

Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1997

Luscious five-CD box of gospel/country/blues/soul classics spanning five decades and thirteen labels in the genre-busting career of Brother Ray. ...

Last Night A Record Changed My Life: Jimmy Scott on Ray Charles And Betty Carter

Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, 2001

I WAS IN the Lionel Hampton band in ’49. Betty joined months after me, we picked her up in Detroit. We never sang together, everybody ...

Ray Charles: The Definitive Ray Charles

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, January 2002

Forty-six tracks from 48 years – 40 of which are from the '50s and '60s, but them's the breaks – a definitive encapsulation of a ...

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

Review by 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', ...

10 Questions for Ray Charles

Interview by Bill DeMain, MOJO, January 2003

Meeting Nat Cole, crafting genius songs on the spot and tips on sartorial cool. Bill DeMain gets the word from the emperor of soul. ...

Ray Charles: 'As Frank Sinatra Said, He Was The Only True Genius In Our Business'

Obituary by Charles Shaar Murray, Independent, The, June 2004

FOR ALL PRACTICAL purposes, Ray Charles invented modern soul music. By fusing the sensual and secular preoccupations of the blues and the galvanic fervour of ...

The Great Ray Charles Needed No Justifying

Retrospective by Al Aronowitz, Blacklisted Journalist, The, July 2004

Ronald Reagan arrived at the Pearly Gates this week, and was met by St. Peter. Reagan was stunned for a moment. ...

Ray Charles: I Believe to My Soul

Essay by Dave Marsh, Harp, September 2004

One of these days, and it won't be longYou gonna look for me, and I'll be gone ...

Brother Ray in Vision

Comment by Charles Shaar Murray, Observer Music Monthly, November 2004

AT A RECENT MOVIE screening, I bumped into a publisher friend who specialises in music biographies. Every so often, he told me, some film production ...

Ray Charles: O-Genio: Live In Brazil 1963

Film/DVD Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, March 2005

AFTER LAST YEAR'S duets album became the best-selling release of his career, coupled with the Oscar buzz surrounding the new biopic, it was inevitable that ...