In case you’re not familiar with it, in the bowling-noir film classic Road House, Ida Lupino plays a cocktail lounge singer in a North Woods bowling alley/road house. Her big number is The Right Time, and she does it in a kinda cute, totally harmless but devoid of soul way.
Now I love the blues, but I had never paid a lot of attention to Ray Charles, what with one thing and another, except that recently I’d begun paying a little more attention to his work. I noticed that fantastic rolling piano line in What’d I Say", the tightness of the horns in most of the arrangements. In fact, it seems safe to say he usually had sidemen who were well up to the caliber of playing with him. So I’ve been buying Ray Charles singles from the RealMusic store, and happened on The Right Time, which is so awesome I can’t even describe how it moves me as a musician and listenter. It’s amazing how he manages that vocal delivery as he plays that great electric piano line. I think he must have been able to sing and play different melody lines simultaneously in much the same way as Jimi Hendrix.
I do like to start at the beginnings of things, though. Can anyone point me to some good compilations or albums of Ray Charles’ early work?