Great artists can be a little thing like his own death hardly dissuade continue to be productive. Whether it be Jimi Hendrix, who provided us for over 40 years in other spheres with always new material, or Tupac Shakur, who appears to be on the other side much more industrious than they were in this world - death is no barrier for new publications, as most recently with Michael Jackson, who had appeared to die first before he finish his comeback album was finally able case of Ray Charles, who left us after all, even before 6 ½ years. , has the flood of subsequent CD releases remains limited: Because there has been only very mixed picture duet album GENIUS & FRIENDS (clearly inspired by his latest album GENIUS MEETS COMPANY) and a semi-newly-played meeting with the Count Basie big band called RAY Sings, Basie Swings With RARE GENIUS -. UNDISCOVERED THE MASTERS is now presented further archival material - and this is so good that the bar for posthumous publications very, very high places.
dug half a year, Concord-chief John Burk, who was involved as co-producer of GENIUS MEETS COMPANY, through the archives of Ray RPM Studios, where hundreds of songs stored across the decades. The ten songs that he has finally been excavated are from the years 1972 to 1995, and it is a tribute to Ray's unique style, the pieces, which span a period of 23 years to put together an absolutely homogeneous album.
Four of the songs were finished, the rest were in various stages of completion and were supplemented with session musicians - some were missing only drums and bass, but sometimes the whole band. Burks merit, it is not only that he regards the post-production of such respect, that without the detailed notes in the booklet do not know, had to be tinkered and find out everything already in place was, but also that he has actually picked the songs and then sequenced, that they form a whole: a new Ray Charles album with just under 42 minutes running length, as opposed to a sprawling collection of different individual titles.
short, Ray is in top form on all pieces. He moved to his usual panache by soul, funk, R & B, country and other genres, it can be of up-tempo brass push to embed strings, from slow blues field, guided by the joy and heartache. And always there is his voice, that warm rasping, the playful phrasing with which he himself nor his cheaply produced album was worth hearing, and agreed to be here ever so much more to tell than just what is being said in the text.
probably belongs to the absolute highlights of the casual radio "I'm Gonna Keep On Singin '", 1995, taken with wonderful accompaniment in the style of Raelettes, tight horns and boisterous keyboard solo by Ray at the end. No less fantastic, the ballads "Wheel of Fortune" and "A Little Bitty Tear" are - both in the best sense of the word, just the beautiful tearjerker, as only Ray could sing it over again, without even a hint of tacky. Blues guitarist Keb 'Mo' plays a solo with a lot of understatement on the ground level to "There'll Be Some Changes Made", but the solo by session guitarist George Doering on "Is not It Wonderful" is no more contemptible.
The last song of the album is not out of the way the RPM archives. It is a duet with Johnny Cash, which was at Sony since 1981 and was never released for unknown reasons. Cash is singing Kris Kristofferson's "Why Me, Lord?" Ray plays this piano and sings backup, and while the focus on Cash's voice as the song starts as a pure Johnny Cash song? One need only compared Kristofferson to hear original to be here to hear Ray's R & B piano stand out immediately. "I have prayed for a record like this for 25 years", Cash writes in the booklet printed in a letter to Ray.
Ehrlich: RARE GENIUS is a full-Ray Charles album, which can be easily side by side with many of his other recordings. And then the question arises whether it would be as greedy, to think about any other treasures in Ray's archives thoughts ...?
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