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Having spent most of the 1950s with Atlantic Records, Ray Charles moved to ABC Paramount in 1960, triggering fame and success beyond any he had previously known. The following year, Atlantic compiled twelve tracks Charles recorded between 1952 and 1960 under the title The Genius Sings The Blues. Mobile Fidelity has now remastered the original mono master tape—revealing both its beauty and its warts with startling clarity. The beauty, of course, lies in the music. Although the cover tunes here—“Early In The Mornin’,” “The Midnight Hour,” “I’m Movin’ On,” “Feelin’ Sad,” “The Right Time”—are wonderful, it’s Charles’ own, self-penned blues that steal the spotlight: “Ray’s Blues,” “I Believe To My Soul,” “Nobody Cares,” “Mr. Charles’ Blues,” “Some Day Baby,” and “I Wonder Who.” The warts are simply due to the variability of the original recordings. Most of the time the sound is balanced and straightforward, if a bit rounded off. But a few tracks suffer from vocal distortion, which MoFi rightly retained rather than try to “fix.”
By Wayne Garcia
Although I’ve been a wine merchant for the past decade, my career in audio was triggered at age 12 when I heard the Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! blasting from my future brother-in-law’s giant home-built horn speakers. The sound certainly wasn’t sophisticated, but, man, it sure was exciting.
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