{"id":43323,"date":"2013-10-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/forever\/"},"modified":"2013-10-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-10T00:00:00","slug":"forever","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/forever\/","title":{"rendered":"Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every once in a while a record company has a good idea, and so it was with the latest Ray Charles release. The United States Postal Service honored Ray Charles on September 23rd<\/sup> with the release of his image on the Music Icons Forever Stamp Series. One day later, Concord Records released Ray Charles Forever, <\/i>a CD\/DVD package.<\/p>\n

Since his death, much of his music has been reissued, and while most Ray Charles music is worth a listen, the material collected here is available elsewhere. Songs such as \u201cA Song For You,\u201d \u201cRing Of Fire,\u201d \u201cTill There Was You,\u201d \u201cImagine\u201d \u201cIsn\u2019t It Wonderful,\u201d and his classic \u201cAmerica The Beautiful\u201d provide a nice taste of his music from different periods of his career. On the other hand, many of his signature albums have been re-released and are probably a better starting point for exploring his music, though the songs here offer a nice introduction.<\/p>\n

The only surprise is the debut of the previously unreleased studio track, \u201cThey Can\u2019t Take That Away From Me.\u201d This cover of the George and Ira Gershwin composition is a treat as it finds a relaxed Charles at his near best.<\/p>\n

The DVD is far more interesting for the Ray Charles fan. Included are live performances of \u201cImagine\u201d from the 1998 Goodwill Games, \u201cThey Can\u2019t Take That Away From Me,\u201d from Earth 1992, and \u201cA Song For You,\u201d recorded at the North Sea Jazz Fest, 1997. It is interesting to compare these live performances to the studio tracks contained on the CD. Also included are interviews taken from the BBC\u2019s Live In London and Norman Seeff\u2019s \u201cThe Session Project.\u201d There are no startling revelations but they are interesting to hear at least once.<\/p>\n

Ray Charles\u2019 career spanned just less than six decades, nearly 100 albums of different types, and over 10,000 concerts. He is remembered as an American icon that was one of the first rhythm & blues\/soul performers to find massive mainstream success. But Ray Charles Forever <\/i>is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his talent and music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":31617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6747],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-43323","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ray-charles","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43323","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43323"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}