“This Old Heart (Is Gonna Rise Again)”

Rambunctious Ray Charles joins forces with the countrified gospel quartet Oak Ridge Boys on the song “This Old Heart (Is Gonna Rise Again)”, released on his 1985 album Friendship. It’s the second song on Side 1 of the LP, but has the ignominious distinction of being one of only three songs from the album not to appear as a single A- or B-side.

“This Old Heart (Is Gonna Rise Again)” opens with some scintillating, classic Ray: just him and his piano, which he stabs arrhythmically under his tortured, blues-gospel singing.

I’ve lost my taste for love before
It goes away, but it don’t stay gone
I feel it in my bones
My bones

After this stark intro, “This Old Heart (Is Gonna Rise Again)” takes on quite a different feel: a thin tap-tap-tap-tap leads into an exhilarating piece of country rock, with impossibly fast percussive pops driving the hoedown beat and Pete Drake’s pedal steel melting through everything. The Oak Ridge Boys come in intoning, “This old heart! This old heart!”, like a chorus of male Raelets.

Actually, on the first verse the Boys take turns singing lines while Ray either keeps mum or shouts out encouragement to them. The Oak Ridge Boys sound fine, of course, and the combined power of their burly, cornfed voices enhances the already-twangy music with its harmonica, furiously-strummed acoustic guitar, and pedal steel.

Ray’s voice, on his verse, sort of throws “This Old Heart (Is Gonna Rise Again)” off onto a side street. It’s not as overtly establishment-country, of course; it’s just the Ray everyone always knew and loved. He doesn’t change anything he’s doing to “fit” the song, he just sings how he sings. And he sounds like he’s having a ball doing it.

The guys race over a somewhat corny key change at the end and the song grinds to a finish with the Oak Ridge voices sounding their final “ooohs” fading away.

Overall, “This Old Heart (Is Gonna Rise Again)” is really more Oak Ridge Boys than Ray Charles; his main contribution is the intro. Other than that he only gets one short verse for himself. Perhaps that’s why this song wasn’t chosen to be on a single.

Whatever, the reason, it does fit in with the country duets on Friendship and is balanced enough to be recommended to both ORB and Ray fans.

Listen to “This Old Heart (Is Gonna Rise Again)”

Get your own “This Old Heart (Is Gonna Rise Again)” on LP, CD or MP3 from Amazon.