This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And surely, a true legend is what you're gonna get today, that is no-one less than Ray Charles, as I will feature the earliest recordings of the Genius, before he signed with Atlantic. In these days his style was heavily influenced by Nat King Cole and Charles Brown. He started recording for the Downbeat label in 1947 as a sixteen-year old boy. So let's hear two of the earliest recordings now. I start off with Walking and Talking - here is the mature voice of a young Ray Charles.
01 - Ray Charles - Walkin' and Talkin'
02 - Ray Charles - I'm Wondering And Wondering
Wondering and Wondering - today you get the earliest recordings of Ray Charles here on the Legends of the Rocking Ducthman.
Ray Charles Robinson was born in Albany, GA on September 23, 1930, and as an infant he moved with his parents to Greenville, FL. His mother had worked as a sharecropper, she'd worked on a sawmill stacking boards, and did laundry for other people. At the age of five little Ray witnessed his brother drowning in the laundry tub of his mother. Shortly after that traumatic experience, Ray gradually became blind. They never made a diagnosis but it's assumed that an untreated glaucoma was the cause.
Now the family were among the poorest of town and Ray's prospects were dim but he learnt from his mother to fight through life. The boy was sent to a school for the deaf and blind in St. Augustine. He had great interest for music from his earliest years where he was fascinated by a piano in a local store, and in St. Augustine he'd learnt to play several instruments. When his mother died whenhe was fifteen years old, he quit school and he started playing in local bands and in 1946 he moved to Seattle, as far away from Florida as possible. It's here and later in Los Angeles that he made his recordings for Down Beat and Swing Time. First he used the name of McSon or Maxin trio. McSon was made of the Mc of McGee, the guitar player and the Son of Robinson, Ray's last name.
So let's hear some more of these early recordings for Downbeat.
03 - Ray Charles - I Love You, I Love You
04 - Ray Charles - Confession Blues
The confession blues - straigt from a pretty neat 78, Down Beat #171. Now this song was Ray Charles' first succes, it hit number 2 on the Rhythm & Blues chart. Before that you heard the flip I Love You, I Love You and the reason that I didn't take that from the 78 is that this side was damaged too much to play it - so you got it from a pretty cheap British CD, an album called Shades of Blues. Actually, these oldest recordings aren't very hard to find - I've seen several inexpensive CDs with no liner notes and also some more documented re-issues like the Complete Downbeat and Swingtime releases.
So let's continue with more of that early stuff when Ray Charles recorded as the Maxin trio. On Swingtime 178 was released the Blues before sunrise backed with the How long blues.
05 - Ray Charles - Blues Before Sunrise
06 - Ray Charles - How Long, How Long Blues
(rocking dutchman jingle)
07 - Ray Charles - A Sentimental Blues
08 - Ray Charles - Rockin' Chair Blues
A Sentimental Blues and the Rockin' Chair Blues - Ray Charles here still was recording under the name of the Maxin trio on the Swingtime label. From 1949 he started to use his own name, dropping his last name Robinson to avoid confusion with Sugar Ray Robinson, the boxer. He recorded Sitting on top of the world, an old country blues from 1930, first recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks. So let's hear the version of the Ray Charles trio, as the label credits.
09 - Ray Charles - Sitting On The Top Of The World
10 - Ray Charles - I've Had My Fun (Going Down Slow)
I've had my fun - that was the flip of Sitting on top of the world, the first single where Ray Charles used his own name, on the Swingtime label, number 215.
His next single was Swingtime 216 - Ain't that fine.
11 - Ray Charles - Ain't that fine
12 - Ray Charles - See See Rider
See See Rider, Ray Charles' version of Ma Rainey's classic was on Swingtime 218. Now Ray Charles was still a pretty unknown artist, and still early in his career but he already had fought himself out of the worst poverty that he'd lived in. And considered what he came from, this was already quite an achievement. After all, what chances would a blind, black boy, from a very poor family in the deep south, orphaned at the age of fifteen, have? But Ray's mother had taught him not to indulge in self-pity and that, together with Ray's sheer musical genius, must have made him the man he was. Of course, he had his weaknesses too. Though he married, he was known to be a notorious womanizer - he had twelve children with nine different women. And in the very first period when he toured Florida with local bands, he got himself an addiction to heroin that he would keep for nearly twenty years.
Next - She's on the ball that was Swingtime 218.
13 - Ray Charles - She's on the ball
14 - Ray Charles - Honey Honey
Money Honey, the flip of She's on the ball.
Now biographies on Ray Charles are plentiful on the web and elsewhere, and though they give a good overview, I was really touched by the movie Ray and especially the part that does the story of his childhood and early years in music business. It's a pity that Ray Charles never got to see the movie that depicts his life - he died shortly before the premiere that he was supposed to attend. If you haven't seen it yet - I recommend it.
Another thing that was clear in the movie was how he loved to be surrounded by women. The next song, The Ego song is all about that.
15 - Ray Charles - The Ego Song
16 - Ray Charles - Late In The Evening Blues
Ray Charles with the Late In The Evening Blues, the flip of the Ego song, from a 78 of the Swingtime label.
Now in the music that I played today, you can well hear the influences of his two idols of that time - Nat King Cole and most notably, Charles Brown. Most often, people say that Ray Charles hadn't found his own style yet and Ray himself always said that he found out he was too much trying to sound like Nat Cole.
And yes, it's true, his most significant change in direction came while he was signed to Atlantic records. But I think we would be doing wrong to this early music of Ray Charles to ignore it or say that he was *just* copying the styles of others. I definitely think he had his own style here too, easily to be distinguished from Cole and Brown. And more, I like the mood of his blues, dark and troublesome and genuine. And some of the lyrics are giving me the shooks on my spine, like in the first song that I played today. In his first record he sings that he needs a change of climate, back to the state of F.L.A. as he calls it, back to his mother, and that while she'd died not long ago and he'd chosen Seattle to be as far away from Florida as possible.
Now it may take some time for the music to grow on you, but for me it did and I appreciate these old recordings as much as his later work.
As we reach the end of this show, you'll get from me the two sides of Swingtime 250, issued in 1951, that is Lonely boy and Baby let me hold your hand.
17 - Ray Charles - Lonely Boy
18 - Ray Charles - Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand
And Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand marks the end of another episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, where we featured the early years of Ray Charles, his recordings on the Down Beat and Swingtime labels. I hope you liked the music as much as I do and if so, or if not, please let me know and drop me an e-mail at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or find me on the web, just do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will pop up first. For now, time's up so byebye and have a great day. No, have a rocking day. See you next time on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!