Link: Ray Charles
The Inside Pulse:
This album comes off as a schizophrenic effort done with painstaking care. The story goes that Ray wanted the last of his masters (a collection of duets from 1997/98) culled for one more album. You can think him proud papa who didn’t want to see any of his children left behind unpublished, or your can think him obsessive compulsive owner of his masters who couldn’t bear the thought of tapes that weren’t making his estate jack on a shelf somewhere. There is more than enough material to support either theory here. It’s all in how forgiving you are in your listening to the really bad tracks that make up a good chunk of this album.
The good chunk is decent and anyone who bought a Ray Charles album in the past several years will find songs to like here. Ray’s vocals are really very good considering we’re talking about his fourth decade of professional singing. He’s most comfortable and best in a lite-jazz mode, which makes up the better one third to one half of this disk. Then there’s the “America the Beautiful” closer. I’m not a flag waver or a sentimentalist, but this track deservedly will go down as a Ray Charles classic. You likely remember it from his Superbowl appearence with Alicia Keys. It’s hard to forget.
The rest of it filler, at times unforgivable filler. Think heavy backing vocals, over done arrangements, sub-par duet pairings, all compiled by Phil Ramone doing whatever he can to keep the wizard behind the curtain. If you liked Genius Loves Company, please don’t look at this as volume two. This has far more in common with 1993’s My World, which milked the “you got the right one, baby, uh-huh!” thing and a couple good tracks to moderate sales success.
Positives:
Some of the tracks are worth the effort if you like lite jazz or have a thing for Ray.
The version of “America the Beautiful” with Alicia Keys is one of a kind and some people will buy it for this and never listen to the other tracks.
Ray could still bring it and sometimes he breaks your heart reaching for a note that doesn’t exist.
Negatives:
Most of what’s here makes you feel like a pawn the game of “can we move this product?”
The good stuff, as I said, is lite jazz, and that’s a tough sell to your average InsidePulse reader (or reviewer)
With a few exceptions that would have found the light of day on some other compilation, this is a poor entry into an already littered and uneven catalog
Cross-breed:
A fourth posthumous Nat “King”/Natalie Cole album with Genius Loves Company
Reason to buy:
You NEED the “America the Beautiful” he did with Alicia Keys at the Superbowl or you love lite jazz.
