Ray Charles: Genius & Soul: The 50th Anniversary Collection

Ray Charles got his start in an era when being a musician often meant taking on a nickname. Nicknames helped sell records, after all, even if they weren't always accurate. Maybe it was an accident that Ray Charles got stuck with the tag of "The Genius," but it was an uncannily appropriate accident. Soft-drink commercials, middle-of-the-road material, and a cameo on The Nanny may have dulled public perception of the raw importance of Charles' work, but the career-spanning, five-disc Genius & Soul—the only anthology to collect material from every label for which he recorded—puts things in perspective. Beginning as a crooner in the style of Nat "King" Cole, Charles more or less invented soul music for Atlantic in the 1950s, by combining the driving beat of R&B with the rapturous singing style of gospel. This period is captured on Genius & Soul's thrilling first disc, and it's easy to think, during the climactic moments of songs like "I Believe To My Soul," "I've Got A Woman" and "What'd I Say," that this is as good as modern American music gets. In the '60s, Charles shifted to ABC, and, in a surprising move given the undeniable triumphs of his Atlantic years, practically retired as a songwriter to sing and play others' songs. This would be tragic were his talent as an interpreter not a match for his early talent. Stylistically restless, Charles turned his attention to jazz, standards and, most famously, country music. The 1962 album Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music and its follow-ups, represented by a generous number of tracks here, were landmark recordings: They provided country with some of its earliest crossover attention, and they represented Charles' most radical gesture in breaking down the barriers between black and white music. By the late '60s, he had settled into respectability, and his more recent music often lacks the fire of his earlier work. It's seldom embarrassing, however, even when it easily could have been. Charles wasn't born to sing "Eleanor Rigby" or "Living For The City," but he does a fine, if never revelatory, job of covering them. An ill-advised, late-period duet with Hank Williams, Jr. is one of only two or three tracks worth skipping on this set, a persuasive testament to the importance, and to the genius, of its subject.