SACD Ray Charles – The Genius Sings The Blues (Mono)

The Genius Sings The Blues as a hybrid mono SACD from the Atlantic 75 Series, mastered by Bernie Grundman direct to DSD from the original analogue master tape. Twelve recordings from 1952 to 1960 in one sequence – from “Early In The Mornin’” to “I Wonder Who”.

Twelve recordings, eight years

The Genius Sings The Blues appeared on Atlantic in October 1961, gathering twelve recordings made between 1952 and 1960. By then Ray Charles had moved to ABC-Paramount, and Atlantic assembled a programme from its own catalogue – with the blues as the thread that connects different songs and recording periods, rather than the result of one new session.

That history is a wonderful way into the music. The album travels between moments in Charles’s development, with voice, piano and accompanying musicians finding different relationships from track to track – across the very years in which he brought blues, gospel, jazz and popular song together.

A country song among the blues

Charles wrote seven of the twelve songs, among them “Hard Times”, “Ray’s Blues”, “I Believe To My Soul” and “Nobody Cares”. Next to them stands material by other writers: “Feelin’ Sad” leads to Guitar Slim, and “Early In The Mornin’” connects with Louis Jordan’s repertoire. So the collection has several points of origin in American music, even if the title suggests one main thread.

Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On” is especially revealing in this company: it brings country repertoire into the blues selection – before Charles’s 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. If you associate his country chapter mainly with that later album, this performance takes you back to an earlier point of contact.

The singer and the answering phrase

In an original such as “I Believe To My Soul”, listen for the relationship between a vocal phrase and the instrumental answer: when does the voice lead, and when does an instrument carry the thought on? Then bring the same question to “I’m Movin’ On” – the change of songwriting material gives you a direct comparison within one album.

Musicians on parts of the collected recordings include saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman and trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, and the personnel changes across the material. So it pays to hear each track on its own terms first – the rhythmic placement, the answers of the accompaniment, the shaping of a line. That way the compilation becomes a journey through different band combinations around the same singer and pianist.

The Atlantic 75 hybrid mono SACD

CAPA 047 SA is a hybrid mono SACD from the Analogue Productions Atlantic 75 Series. According to the publisher, Bernie Grundman mastered it direct to DSD from the original analogue master tape. The SACD layer plays on SACD-capable players, the CD layer on any conventional CD player. The disc contains the twelve tracks in the original album sequence.

You order from Michael 45 in Germany. We arrange the US import and ship from Hilden.

More from the series: Atlantic 75 Series

Also in another edition: The Genius Sings The Blues

More SACDs by Ray Charles: The Genius Of Ray Charles · What’d I Say · Ray Charles

Customer question: Buying Analogue Productions records in Europe

Musicians

Documented selection of participating musicians. Personnel may vary by track; this list does not claim to be complete.