Ray Charles: Yes Indeed! (Atlantic)
Released: 1958/o:p
One advantage of having an older sister was rummaging through her boyfriends’ record collections. One had albums by Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith that, with teenage folly, I dismissed as wimpy jazz. But in the pile was an album by Ray Charles called Yes Indeed!.
Friends had tried to assure me about his genius but I was unconvinced. I liked the raucous What’d I Say and the stomp of Hit The Road Jack, but lately he’d been clogging up the charts with schmaltzy ballads like I Can’t Stop Loving You and You Don’t Know Me. But I gave it a whirl.
It was blues but there was all this other stuff in there as well, starting with Charles’ voice which had a passion that took me by surprise. On What Would I Do Without You the melody and Charles’ light-fingered piano were almost pop, but there were flourishes that came from elsewhere. Jazz? The call and response of It’s All Right with the voices bathed in echo had shades of gospel, that was even more pronounced on the third track, I Want To Know. The traditional spiritual Swanee River Rock was beefed up with bongos. The songs that really got under my skin were the jaunty Get On The Right Track Baby and the slow, insistent Lonely Avenue.
A couple of weeks later my sister was going to dump this guy. I popped over and borrowed the album. I figured he’d never come and ask for it back. Then I wrote my name on the back in case someone else tried to borrow it. I’ve still got it./o:p
