On Thursday, June 10 this year, I received an e-mail from a
\ncolleague asking me if I would be joining in the national day of
\nmourning the following day. My reply: “Absolutely. Ray Charles was
\nTHE MAN.” (I think she meant some other guy, but whatever.)<\/p>\n
\nGenius Loves Company<\/i> is the last album recorded by one of
\nthe last century’s most remarkable and important musical artists.
\nNobody connected the musical dots between gospel, blues, r&b,
\njazz, pop and even country with more passion, flair and yes, soul,
\nthan Ray Charles. He was a genre-spanning marvel, a superb piano
\nplayer, and one of the most genuinely soulful artists ever to grace
\nthe stage at a presidential inauguration.<\/p>\n
He was also one of those artists that anybody who knew anything
\nabout music would work with in the blink of an eye. I imagine it
\ntook roughly 1.5 phone calls apiece to book the 12 artists who duet
\nwith Ray on this grand finale — a few folks you may have heard of
\nlike BB King, Van Morrison, Norah Jones, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt,
\nDiana Krall, Michael McDonald, Johnny Mathis and the list goes
\non.<\/p>\n
For a man not long from dying, Charles sounds vividly alive
\nthroughout this disc. He matches Jones note for note on their
\njazzy, slinky pas de deux “Here We Go Again,” playfully trades
\nvocals with James Taylor on JT’s lost r&b classic “Sweet Potato
\nPie,” and gets downright giddy dueting with Natalie Cole on one of
\nthe disc’s highlights, the steamy “Fever.” Bonnie Raitt’s
\ncontribution illustrates how both artists managed to mine the
\nfertile ground between country and rhythm & blues.<\/p>\n
The emotional high point of the album, though, has to be the
\ngospel-blues summit convened by Charles and BB King on “Sinner’s
\nPrayer.” First BB and then Ray pleads “Lord, please have mercy on
\nme,” and you can’t help thinking about the context for both of
\nthese hard-living, long-lived legends. The interplay between
\nCharles’ piano and King’s guitar is everything you could hope for,
\nand their well-worn voices have more soul than a choir full of
\npreachers. The sequencing is great, too, as this track segues right
\ninto a powerful gospel duet with Gladys Knight (“Heaven Help Us
\nAll”).<\/p>\n
I’d love to tell you this album is perfect, but that would only
\nbe almost true. I could complain about Willie Nelson’s
\nquote-unquote singing, but that would be pointless; you like him or
\nyou don’t (guess where I fall on
\nthat<\/i> one\u2026). No, my real gripe is with the inclusion of
\nElton John. Yes, Elton is a talented guy, and “Sorry Seems To Be
\nThe Hardest Word” is one of his more thoughtful songs, but really,
\nthe only thing these two artists have in common is 88 keys.
\nEverything Ray ever did started from the blues, and Elton is pop
\nall the way. Elton is a showman; Ray is a soul man. As much as I
\nwanted it to, this track just didn’t work for me.<\/p>\n
These small blemishes aside,
\nGenius Loves Company<\/i> is an album full of wonderful moments,
\na kaleidoscopic overview of the many genres Ray Charles left his
\nmark on, in which he’s joined by an all-star cast of guests who
\nsound overjoyed just to have been asked. As they should be. Bon
\nvoyage, Ray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6747],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38077","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ray-charles","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38077"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}