The Birth of Soul Reviewed

This three-disc album is arranged chronologically covering the period from 1952-1959.

Disc 1

The first five tracks on Disc are vocalized with big band orchestration. The first three are smooth and jazzy. Starting with track 4, Jumpin' in the Morning, the sound becomes less smooth and more R&B.

Tracks 6 through 17 feature smaller, rhythmic R&B sounding bands. These tracks are bluesy, becoming more and more intense, bringing in gospel elements toward the end of the disc.

My favorite Ray Charles is the blues singer. My favorite track on this disc is # 8, Sinner's Prayer, featuring a great blues band, Ray's piano, and a gospel-charged soulfulness. Here is an older Ray Charles singing and playing this song with B.B. King.


Disc 2

Disc 2 is the heart of this album. The blues/gospel fusion is well developed, and Charles' voice is amazing with an inner lightness under the grit.

I have a lot of favorite tracks from this disc, but the first (track 18), I Got a Woman, is a must-listen. It is a Ray Charles original, based on a gospel tune, but I thought it was a traditional blues when I first heard it. Come Back Baby, track 20, sounds very gospel to me, slow, rhythmic, and intense with gospel shouting, and Hard Times, track 23, sounds very bluesy. Starting with track 26, Drown in My Own Tears, another soulful favorite of mine, Ray's back up singers, the Raylettes, first appear. Hallelujah I Love Her So, track 27, is a Ray Charles hallmark, here in a youtube of a rare 1955 live performance.

Disc 3

Here there are fewer Ray Charles originals, a general smoothing out of the grit, and evidences of a more commercial sound. Track 36, Swanee River, is cute, a soul-ish version of a classic with an R&B beat. Tracks 37-39 are straight R&B to my ears. Track 40, I Want a Little Girl, is to the tune of This little Light of Mine, and has a commercialized R&B sound. My track picks from disc 3 are track 44, Tell the World About You and Track 50, What'd I Say, seen here in a remarkable 1963 performance.

Happy New Year everyone! I plan to spend the holiday listening to Ray's Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, number 104 on the Rolling Stone Magazine list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The Genius: Ray Charles and the Birth of Soul

The Birth of Soul: The Complete Atlantic Rhythm and Blues Recordings 1952-1959 by Ray Charles made the number 53 spot of Rolling Stone Magazine's 2003 list of the top 500 albums of all time.

On listening to all three discs in this collection for the first time, the greatness was not in question, but the quality that stood out most for me was the fluidity of Ray Charles' performances. He seems the easy master of every style from jazz to pop to r&b to pre- rock and roll, and especially the blues. In his liner notes for this album,* Robert Palmer also notes Charles' versatility, calling him "...[a] musical polymath, blender and creator of of idioms, setter of styles and trends...." According to Palmer, around Atlantic Records they took to calling him The Genius.

But what about this "birth of soul" business? Soul music is variously defined as a mixture of blues and gospel and, more often, as a mixture of rhythm and blues and gospel. Soul music tends to be grittier and more emotionally intense than typical R&B, and uses gospel devices like call and response and the gospel choir (ie: the backup singers). Since the 1960s, what is called soul music has diversified quite a bit, according to allmusic, but in the 1950s of Ray Charles' creative flowering, he is credited with bringing gospel fervor to the blues and creating soul music.

Charles himself describes the process, as quoted by Robert Palmer: "There was a crossover between gospel music and the rhythm patterns of the blues, which I think came down through the years from slavery times....But when I started doing things that would be based on an old gospel tune I got criticism from the churches, and from musicians too. They thought it was sacrilegious or something....But I kept doing it, and eventually...the people started saying I was an innovator."

Next time, I'll go through the discs with my comments and Youtube links to give you a taste of this genius.

* This 3 disc set is available at our library, but Robert Palmer's liner notes are missing. They can be found in the Robert Palmer collection Blues and Chaos, not in our collection but available through our library system.

Josh Groban on the Big Screen

Saturday, December 19 at 2:00 pm

Don't miss this concert filmed in Pasadena and backed by a symphonic orchestra. Groban's debut album, Josh Groban, was released in November 2001. Over the next year, Groban became a star. His album went double platinum, and he had his own PBS special in November 2002. This is the PBS concert featuring the following selections:

1. Alla Luce Del Sole
2. You're Still You
3. Vincent (Starry Starry Night)
4. Gira Con Me Questra Notte
5. Un Amore Per Sempre
6. Alejate
7. Broken Vow
8. To Where You Are
9. Cinema Paradiso (se)
10. For Always (song from A.I. - John Williams Conducting)
11. Home to Stay
12. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
13. Canto Alla Vita
14. The Prayer (featuring Angie Stone)
15. Let Me Fall (from Cirque du Soleil)