Name: RAY CHARLES Ray Charles
SKU: AAPA 007-45
Availability: BackOrder

RAY CHARLES Ray Charles

£48.00 – £80.00

Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series),Iconic musician and singer Ray Charles’ classic 1957 album. Vinyl arrived awaiting CD’s

RAY CHARLES Ray Charles

Ray Charles’ self-titled 1957 album was one of the first handful of LPs issued by Atlantic (and was later retitled Hallelujah I Love Her So).

As AllMusic reviewer Bruce Elder notes, the album is weighted about three to one in favour of Charles’ own compositions, with the hits “Hallelujah I Love Her So” and the pounding, soaring “Ain’t That Love,” which opens the LP, its raison d’etre.

Charles does just as well with his interpretations of others’ work, most notably the ominous, gospel-focused rendition of “Sinner’s Prayer” (which offers a virtuoso piano performance, and comes courtesy of the pen of Charles’ former mentor Lowell Fulson) and Henry Glover’s wrenching ballad “Drown in My Own Tears,” which is topped out on each verse by a gorgeous chorus.

“Funny (But I Still Love You)” offers a guitar break played in such an understated fashion that it almost doesn’t seem so much a part of R&B as it was usually being offered in 1957 as it does a part of Charles’ early career output.

The second side of the LP is even better, opening with the title track, a number that is almost too ubiquitous in its various cover versions — the original has a mix of urgency and playfulness that’s absolutely bracing, and the album carries this mood forward with “Mess Around,” an Ahmet Ertegun-authored piano- and sax-driven romp with Charles at his most ebullient as a singer.

“This Little Girl of Mine” offers him in a surprisingly light, almost acrobatic vocal mode, while “Greenbacks” is a knowing, clever cautionary narrative that is almost a throwback to 1940s-style R&B. “Don’t You Know” is as salacious a piece of R&B as one was likely to hear in 1957, and “I Got a Woman” closes the record out on a pounding, driving note.

All the hallmarks of a top-notch Analogue Productions reissue are here for you to savor: Mastered directly from the original master tape by Bernie Grundman and cut at 45 RPM. Pressed on 180-gram at Quality Record Pressings and RTI, and housed in tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing.

Track List:RAY CHARLES Ray Charles

1. Ain’t That Love

2. Drown In My Own Tears

3. Come Back Baby

4. Sinner’s Prayer

5. Funny (But I Still Love You)

6. Losing Hand

7. A Fool For You

8. Hallelujah I Love Her So

9. Mess Around

10. This Little Girl Of Mine

11. Mary Ann

12. Greenbacks

13. Don’t You Know

14. I Got A Woman

75 ATLANTIC

Additional information

Version	180G Vinyl, SACD

Brand

Analogue Productions

Analogue Productions It was in 1992 that Acoustic Sounds owner Chad Kassem reissued his first Analogue Productions title, Virgil Thompson's The Plow That Broke The Plains, originally on Vanguard. Analogue Productions began as a vehicle for Kassem to license his favorite all-time recordings and reissue them as remastered and as a superior version to the original release. Since its inception AP has reissued hundreds of titles, ranging from classical to folk, pop, rock, blues and jazz. Included in the many highlights of Analogue Productions' history are the Fantasy 45 Jazz Reissues, the Blue Note Reissues, and premium box sets of the music of such legendary acts as The Doors, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Nat "King" Cole and Norah Jones. True to its name, Analogue Productions works with the original analogue master tapes - more than any other reissue label! The result is superior sound - richer, warmer and more lifelike, than digital.