“Alone Together”
Song by Ray Charles and Betty Carter
When Ray Charles and Betty Carter sing “Alone Together” towards the end of their seduction-duets concept album Ray Charles And Betty Carter, it’s the culmination of all that has happened so far on the record and the mesmerizing merging of two people into one.
“Alone Together” was written in 1932 by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz for Broadway’s Flying Colors musical. Many artists have recorded their own (usually solo) versions of the haunting and romantic number, and jazz musicians (including no less than Miles Davis) have also been drawn to its melodies.
Other songs on their album were playful – as in the famous “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and “Cocktails For Two”, as Ray and Betty danced around the subject of whether or whether not they were going to end up together tonight. On “Alone Together”, the matter has been decided: yes. And all pretense and humor is dropped, replaced by a stark earnestness.
And so “Alone Together” sheds all the winking and flirting of the rest of the album and finally sees the two opening themselves up emotionally to one another in heartfelt pledges of love. Marty Paich’s arrangement is enveloping and magical, as are the feelings shared by the two lovers. The Jack Halloran Singers come and go at times throughout the song, a kind of Greek chorus commenting on the nocturnal bliss.
Most effectively of all, Betty and Ray sing together on parts of “Along Together”, rather than each soloing on their own verses as they had been throughout much of the album. They each do sing alone – Betty with her ethereal weighty but airless tones, and Ray with his unexpectedly tender and melodic crooning – but at times join to sing the same thing at the same time. It’s a majestic underscoring of the fact that the two have united on a profound level.
“Alone Together” is the longest song on Ray Charles And Betty Carter, appropriately so as it’s what the entire album has been leading up to. After a quick, jaunty closing number which offsets the heavy, serious atmosphere of “Alone Together” the album ends on the happiest of happy notes.
Listen to “Alone Together”
Songs on Ray Charles And Betty Carter