Brother Ray Is At It Again
Album by Ray Charles
Ah yes, Brother Ray Is At It Again. On this relatively little-known Ray Charles LP, the man behind the shades demonstrates yet again his mastery of various musical styles in a varied and eclectic package. This album is an extraordinarily fun listen from beginning to end.
Brother Ray Is At It Again came out in March of 1980 and was the final in a four-LP run on his old label Atlantic, who’d welcomed him back with open arms in 1977. Each of Ray Charles’s four Atlantic albums from the late 1970s are rich and compelling, and while hindsight cruelly (and erroneously) dismisses them as “disco” with the wave of a lazy hand, the truth is that Ray was at the top of his game in this portion of his career.
About the songs on Brother Ray Is At It Again
The leadoff track, and the album’s only single, is indeed infused with a disco beat, but it’s a furious and exhilarating one. “Compared To What” is tough, mature funk and Ray was never angrier as a singer. “Anyway You Want To” moves at a slower pace but may be a little more accessible because of its catchy singalong chorus and sly and sultry Raelets backing vocals.
“Don’t You Love Me Anymore?” shifts gears utterly; it’s a tender, slow-moving orchestrated piece over which Ray growls and wails emotively, and it’s here that the listener begins to get a sense of the wide-ranging styles on Brother Ray Is At It Again. As with many Ray Charles albums, what binds the songs sonically is his singing voice; as far as continuity it matters not a whit what types of songs and instrumentation he’s using to get his feelings across because his vocal molasses holds it all together on one platter.
On the final song on Side A, “A Poor Man’s Song” brings Ray back to modern funky pop music. Here he soulfully belts out a soaring melody over a jittery, twitchy rhythm. If this be disco, give me more.
Side B begins with “Now That We’ve Found Each Other”, co-written by former Raelet and lifelong Ray Charles pal Mabel John. It’s a gentle song, swamped with washes of lush 1970s horns and Ray’s pinging electric keyboard. Mabel John has found herself another winning melody too. This song was chosen as the B-side to “Compared To What”.
All this leads up to the most unexpected choice on Brother Ray Is At It Again: a cover of The Band’s 1975 favorite “Ophelia”. Ray makes it his own, forsaking the knock-kneed looniness of the original for a wicked shuffle decorated with horns and driven along by, as always, some energetic vocals. Even someone wholly unfamiliar with the original could fall in love with this curious and humorous performance.
Frankie Miller’s 1973 hit “I Can’t Change It” comes next and allows Ray to add another color to the LP’s palette: ecstatic gospel. More tortured and thus more cathartic than the original, this song contrasts very nicely with the quirky bounce of the previous “Ophelia”.
The final song on the final album of Ray’s 1970’s years is one he wrote himself: “Questions”. The song is in every way an exercise in balance, alternating between outrage and compassion in its music, singing, and lyrics. Over a simple instrumental background that doesn’t get in the way, Ray closes out this excellent album by drawing attention to society’s forgotten and abused, asking in a series of unanswered lines why bad things happen to good people.
Brother Ray Is At It Again is a masterful display of light and shade, of soft and hard. There’s something for everyone, but anyone listening to this album will be rewarded by each of its eight songs. They move through several different feels and styles but sitting at the top of each one is master of ceremonies Ray Charles, pulling it all together with his soul intact and his warm musicality oozing out of every groove.
And it would be his last new music for a while: after Brother Ray Is At It Again Ray Charles left Atlantic and it wasn’t until over two years later that he showed up again in new-release record bins, as a rascally Nashville country singer on several albums and singles on Columbia.
Minutiae for Ray Charles nerds
On the front cover, and only there, there’s an exclamation mark in the album title: Brother Ray Is At It Again!
Record covers
Record labels
Singles with songs from Brother Ray Is At It Again
Track listing
Side A
1. “Compared To What”
2. “Anyway You Want To”
3. “Don’t You Love Me Anymore?”
4. “A Poor Man’s Song”
Side B
1. “Now That We’ve Found Each Other”
2. “Ophelia”
3. “I Can’t Change It”
4. “Questions”
Listen to Brother Ray Is At It Again
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