Ray Charles - Rhythm & Blues: The Early Recordings 1949-1955

If you didn’t get one last year…

In the wake of Charles’ death and the Ray biopic, it was easy to lose sight of the quality of the man’s work – particularly his earliest and now-public domain recordings, which seemed to get at least one standard issue a month by someone or other last year. Now that things have calmed down a little, here’s a nice reminder of why it’s not necessarily all What’d I Says that earned Charles the epithet of Genius. Heavily influenced by Charles Brown, these late 40s-to-mid-50s sides are mostly the early jazz- and blues-styled recordings Charles made for Jack Lauderdale’s Down Beat/Swing Time label. Come the likes of Kissa Me Baby, recorded as early as 1951, however, there’s evidence of the raucous muse that Charles would later follow. Slightly more background than Charles’ later work, these recordings are still essential for anyone interested in steeping themselves in R&B and/or Charles. But ‘more background’ doesn’t mean ‘easy listening’, for much of this has Charles bleeding, or at least sweating, onto his keys in a way far more raw and attention-grabbing than his contemporaries. If this had been the first collection of its type, it would be indispensable. It remains so for those who don’t own the recordings already.

Chrome Dreams | CDCD 5014

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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