“It’s All Right”

“It’s All Right” was released as the A-side of a Ray Charles single in June 1957, and it’s yet another stunner from his years-long streak of excellent R&B singles for Atlantic in the 1950s. This time, it’s a melodramatic, minor-key mixture of shrug and lament. What she did was wrong – but (sigh) it’s all right. The B-side of the “It’s All Right” single (Atlantic 1143) was “Get On The Right Track, Baby”. Both songs were added to the Yes Indeed! compilation album in 1958.

A lonesome saxophone wails a pitiful and brief little melody to open “It’s All Right” before the band splashes in and the Raelets, sounding like ghosts, chant the song’s title. Ray comes in, howling from the outset – “WHOOOOOAAAA now, let me tell you now” – before settling into the distracted-sounding bluesy voice that fits the song’s purpose. He still loves her. She’s gone away. There’s nothing he can say but… (sigh).

Ray’s singing was by now a marvel of emotion and feeling, and of the blues that he loved until the end of his life. Twisting melodies with ease, letting phrases swell into a raging growl, and crying over the cracks in his voice, he throws down a pouting performance of heart-piercing sadness on “It’s All Right”. The always-present Raelets, who only ever keep repeating the song’s title, only serve to compound the song’s feeling of dread and the unfair solitude of the lyrics. It’s so clearly not all right.

Ray wrote “It’s All Right”, as he did most of his R&B sides for Atlantic, and there are some moments where the music suddenly stops for a tense few seconds, where Ray sings unaccompanied for extra effect. But the loping music and those somber female singers keep crawling back.

“It’s All Right” is blues with panache: it shows Ray and his band at the top of their game, simply but effectively arranged, and tells a simple tale in both its singing and its music. This is a lonely night in a bare room, sitting on a tatty sofa with a bottle of cheap wine, in song form. The protagonist has nothing good to say about his situation. But it’s all right.

Single releases

Listen to “It’s All Right”

Get your own “It’s All Right” on 45, LP, CD or MP3 from Amazon. Or get the complete Atlantic recordings 7xCD box set.