 [Larger view] | Ray Charles - Genius Loves Company
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Average user rating:  | |
 3 1/2- 4 stars- Pretty Good | |
| Ray Charles was a first-rate musician. He could make music! But this CD, in general, is not a joy to hear. First (through no fault of his own--he was very sick, after all), Charles' voice sounds very weak and strained here. One can still hear evidence of his outstanding talent, but it is very diminished. Second, most of the song selections were not well-advised. I love James Taylor, for example, but not that song, and certainly not in duet with Ray Charles. Similar comment can be made about many of the other songs and singers. Two or three of the tracks are excellent, however, particularly Charles' respective duets with Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, and Johnny Mathis. In my opinion, those three tracks alone are worth the purchase price (while most of the others I probably will skip in future). Also (for you audiophiles), the recording-quality varies from track to track; sometimes it is very good, but mostly it is merely adequate.
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 WOW | |
| Ray Charles is without a doubt the greatest popular piano player of all time. This compilation of duets further emphasizes that he is most assuredly the man. | |
| Amazing chemistry between Ray and whomever he sings with... | |
| Ray left us with a fantastic CD to remember him by. There are 12 songs and I thoroughly enjoyed 11 of them. Probably the best song here is the first one, "Here We Go Again" with Norah Jones. This baby just oozes with soul and Ms. Jones is mature beyond her years. A close second is Ray's duet with Gladys Knight on the gospel classic "Heaven Help Us All" with a huge choir and orchestra. To round out my top three is his duet with Van Morrison on the live "Crazy Love". I think that Ray brings the best out of Morrison.
The rest of this CD is near perfect as well. Some fabulous chart arrangements from Victor Vanacore on "Hey Girl" with Michael McDonald, "Somewhere over the Rainbow" with Johnny Mathis and "It Was a Very Good Year" with an old sounding Willie Nelson. Too bad `Ol Blue Eyes wasn't still around to sing it the way it was meant to be but the strings here sounded spectacular. Ray and Diana Krall nicely cover the Eddy Arnold classic "You Don't Know Me" and a playful Natalie Cole has some strong chemistry with Ray on "Fever". Then there's a duet with Bonnie Raitt playing some nasty slide at the beginning of "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?" and what a treat to have Ray on piano with BB King playing Lucille on "Sinner's Prayer". The last song Ray ever recorded was his duet of "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" with Elton John. Nicely done but a bit disconcerting having two men singing a romantic duet together, even if one of them is Elton. The only weak track here is his duet of "Sweet Potato Pie" with James Taylor. To my ears, Ray sounds more like Randy Newman on this track and is there anybody with less soul than JT? But 11 great songs out of 12 is pretty damn good for a 70 year old man struggling with cancer. So a superb song selection, nicely written liner notes, Billy Preston on the Hammond B3 throughout most of this CD and amazing chemistry between Ray and whomever he sings with makes for a fabulous swan song to a glorious and prolific career. |
