Ray Charles dead

[PeaceFroggy]

Legendary soul/blues/gospel singer died today.

[Nano]

A great loss, even if he did his best contributions to popular music many years ago.
I remember him doing a concert in Buenos Aires around 1992. Everyone hated him; they said it was really bad and short and the hire-on musicians sounded really cheap. Similar thing happened when Jerry Lee Lewis came here that same year.
I guess that's what they call the "nostalgia circuit". Anyway, that ending of "What I'd say" makes up for most of it: it was truly one of the birthplaces of soul music.

[Keith RS]

WHAT A LOSS!!!

One of the first songs I knew the lyrics to was, "I Can't Stop Loving You" from 1962's "Modern Sounds of Country and Western Music". Ironically, issue # 937(Dec. 2003) of Rolling Stone magazine, rates this album #104 in the 500 greatest albums of all-time!

The fact that an album released 42 years ago can still pull down a high rating from a rock magazine is impressive. How about his version "America the Beautiful" or "Georgia on My Mind".

[NickNack]

Without a doubt, a pioneer and a legend. Damn, I've been hearing this man sing since I first learned to walk. My jam: "(Night Time Is) The Right Time".

Now, what'd I say... :D

[SandraDee]

I recently read the Quincy Jones autobiography & he talks about Ray Charles quite alot as they were very close. He seemed a very confident & self-sufficient type of person; he didn't need anyone's help or sympathy & sounded a real character as well. Quincy had great admiration for him. People like him make the world a more interesting place for sure.

[judydoggie]

To Steely: Quincy, or "Q" as he's known in musical circles, has frequently voiced, on the record, that Charles was one of his earliest teachers in theory and composition (quite informally so, but nonetheless, Q got his foundation in composition from the late Mr. Charles).

Ray was to have played the Litchfield Jazz Festival in Litchfield, Connecticut USA 2004; as he'd done last year. He didn't make it.

Finally, for lovers of obscurity, a little-known note. Tony Bennett came out in 2001 with "Playin' With My Friends," in which he does "Evenin'" with Charles as a duet. A much better duet performed by the two was, of all things, a jazzy-blues cover of James Taylor's "Everybody Has The Blues" on Bennett's "The Art of Excellence" (Columbia 1986). Why on earth they didn't reprise that absolutely perfect tune on "Playin' With My Friends" I'll never know. "The Art of Excellence" can now be found in record stores in the "nice price" racks for all of $8.99 or thereabouts and, although I'm a jazz nut and bought it for every cut, blues/Ray Charles lovers should spend the money for just that one tune. (It doesn't hurt that the engineering on the CD is spectacular).