The Great Ray Charles
Jazz Album by Ray Charles
The first-ever album of new Ray Charles music was also the first time he released straight-up jazz: Atlantic released The Great Ray Charles, modest title and all, just two months after the Ray Charles R&B compilation. It introduced a completely different Ray to the world.
Because Ray’s fame rested on those R&B singles, The Great Ray Charles became a way for the master to explore his heretofore hidden love of modern jazz. Art for art’s sake, with no commercial pressure. It was also a sign of the times in that nobody quite knew how singles and albums fit into the record-buying world; full-length LPs were still kind of new and it made perfect sense to use their generous expanses for longer instrumental pieces. In this spirit, no singles were released to promote the album, which hasn’t prevented it from becoming a jazz classic.
(Actually there was one single related to The Great Ray Charles: “Doodlin'”, split up onto both sides of the single, was released in September 1960 after Ray Charles had left Atlantic for ABC.)
Vinyl reissues
The Great Ray Charles was re-released in 2010 on 180-gram vinyl by Rhino, in an edition widely praised for its packaging and sound quality. In 2014, a small European label called Dol released another vinyl version, less-reknowned and, as far as we understand, without using the original master tapes. Both reissues use the same great cover art as the original. The recommended version for vinyl lovers is the Rhino one, or of course a decent-quality Atlantic original.
Record covers
This is actually the Rhino Records reissue of 2010. There were some design variations of Atlantic’s issues and reissues over the years, all of which kept this same basic layout. As you can see the Rhino one uses the version with the word RAY in blue, and no big STEREO box underneath (though it is stereo).
Record labels
Also from the 2010 Rhino reissue – these labels copy the original Atlantic ones so closely, they don’t even say “Rhino” anywhere on them. That’s dedication!
Singles with songs from The Great Ray Charles
“Doodlin'” [part 1]
b/w
“Doodlin'” [part 2]
Track listing
Side A
1. “The Ray”
2. “My Melancholy Baby”
3. “Black Coffee”
4. “There’s No You”
Side B
1. “Doodlin'”
2. “Sweet Sixteen Bars”
3. “I Surrender Dear”
4. “Undecided”
Listen to The Great Ray Charles
Get your own The Great Ray Charles on LP, CD or MP3 from Amazon. Or get the complete Atlantic recordings 7xCD box set.
