Ray Charles Man And Music
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David Ritz seems to get the first bite at every Soul Biography and so it is with Ray Charles. Typical of Ray Charles however he would only agree to undertaking the project providing he had full control over the final product. Inevitably therefore the 'official' line must be considered a pretty whitewashed version of events. Michael Lyndon by comparison is not bound by any such restrictions, and as a result produces a genuine 'warts and all' account of the singer's life. He portrays the blind singer as a womaniser, heroine addict and absent father. He recounts numerous examples of the singer's mean spirited and peevish actions towards his own musicians. I sense that Lyndon does his best to present a balanced view and wherever possible tries to cite any noble action Charles performed, but relative to his ignoble deeds they are few and far between. After reading this book I felt wholly guilty that I could dislike a blind man so much. My experience of Mojo publications is that they are invariably well written, and this is no exception. The detail that Lyndon is able to give is testimony to the thoroughness of his research. It is chronologically ordered and well structured and there is no doubt he has dug very deep to unearth the details that he has. If I have any complaints about his style it is that he is one of those writers who loves to include mini biographies of every new character he introduces. This invariably disrupts the flow of the central narrative. From a musical perspective there can be no doubting Ray Charles genius, but it should be remembered his output was varied to say the least, Blues, R&B, Jazz, Country and Western, Pop and even easy listening standards. There are also many grandiose claims for his ability as a Soul singer. 'soul singers bowed to him as their spiritual father' - P.270 'In January he made a Soul of America commercial for McDonalds' - P321 'A new single died, but a series of Coca-cola commercials he'd cut with RPM with Aretha Franklin began to air, and millions of listeners turned up their radios to hear the king and queen of soul assure the world that 'things would go better with coke'' - P.277 The fact is that Lydon can identify many Jazz, Blues, R&B or Country and Western records that Ray Charles cut, but throughout the 400 pages he fails to name a single soul song that Ray Charles sang. One reason may be that Americans have never distinguished between blues and soul as rigidly as the British have, certainly his claim that backing singer Mable John was a blues artist would be hotly disputed by soul aficionados on this side of the Atlantic. Distinctions are further blurred by the fact that many of the albums Charles created with 'Soul' in the title actually did very well in the Jazz charts (Ray Charles: the Birth of Soul, I believe to my Soul, Soul Brothers, Soul Meeting). The fact is that I think Michael Lyndon is expert in the life of Ray Charles, is very familiar with Blues, Jazz and C&W, but is significantly less comfortable in the Soul arena. This is a great pity because many significant points about Charles contribution to soul music are missed entirely. 'I Got A Woman' and 'What'd I Say' are considered by many cognoscenti to be the first soul records because of the way they drew on Gospel Music. Their significance to Lydon is as good R&B tunes which also cracked the pop market. The fact that Charles released them in the mid fifties a good five years before the soul explosion proves just how far ahead of his time he was. The claim that he was 'King' of Soul however is open to dispute. In my view he was far too diverse in his output to deserve the title. The book suggests he would play anything from reggae to Mongolian Opera if it kept him in the charts. In summary this book is well worth reading, it is well written and thoroughly researched. The authors inability to distinguish between soul, blues and R&B however means that from a soul perspective key developments are overlooked. None the less a very interesting tome which is undoubtedly worth reading. |
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Why Not visit the Authors other Website, 'The Alternative Blackpool Website' at http://www.localdial.com/users/jsyedu133/bpool This Site Last Updated 18/05/05
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