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Second time around was
much more convincing, with Ray picking up a recent recording by fellow
Georgian Titus Lee Turner, a catchy little mix of Latin rhythms with R&B
called ‘Sticks And Stones’, and adding an extra level of sophistication to it
with a couple of ‘What’d I Say’-style piano solos. This was far
closer to what the people needed, and the record nearly shot to the top of
the R&B charts — boosted as well by the B-side, a moody and vocally epic
interpretation of the old classic ‘Worried Life Blues’, albeit slightly
spoiled by the corny vaudeville intro in which a seemingly clueless white guy
begins by addressing the singer: "say Ray, you sure look mighty
sad". "Yeah man", Ray responds, "that’s because I have
the blues". Thus do we learn, in our belated day and age, what it really
means to have the blues. Ironically, the person to insult our intelligence is
reported to be none other than Sid Feller, Ray’s principal conductor and
arranger throughout the ABC years, who would be equally responsible for much
of the class and the cheese on what
would be coming.
Interestingly, both sides of the
single would be eagerly picked up by UK fans overseas, who did their best to
improve upon Ray’s performances: ‘Sticks And Stones’ would become one of the
finest early R&B recordings by the Zombies (chiefly since it gave Rod
Argent a good chance to display his fluency and virtuosity on the organ,
definitely «out-rocking», if maybe not «out-souling» Ray), and ‘Worried Life
Blues’ would be elevated to further heights by the Animals, with Eric Burdon
and Alan Price adding even more aesthetic and psychological layers to the
song. (The difference being that for Charles, it was probably «just another
blues number», whereas the Animals set about to transform it into an «art
song»). This just goes to show how much in line these recordings were with
Ray’s old Atlantic R&B sound — something that, unfortunately, would not
apply at all to his first full-fledged LP for the label, which, in contrast,
yielded almost no «role models» for the aspiring British disciples overseas.
I do not know if it was Ray
himself who came up with the concept of making a «travelog album», or if the
concept was suggested to him by some other «genius» at ABC, be it Sid Feller
or somebody else. This is hardly important, though. What is important is that the record was clearly supposed to highlight
the towering status of «The Genius»
over everybody else in the business: by singing twelve different songs about
twelve different American states, Ray would look like the spiritual conqueror
of all these places. Move over, Uncle
Sam, ’cause Uncle Ray is movin’ in. The idea of the man with the golden
touch, an artistic genius who can put a deep personal imprint on any form of
musical or verbal art he chooses to approach, could reach a true pinnacle
here, and ABC put all the necessary resources at Ray’s disposal.
The bad news is that, as a rule,
megalomania is not the best thing for one’s artistic health (let alone
psychic and physical health, which depends very much on one’s inborn
constitution). The Genius Hits The
Road largely adopts and expands the approach already tried out on Ray’s previous «Genius» album, which basically ended up burying the «genius» in
question under thick layers of musical makeup that had nothing to do with
«genius» in the first place. Had Ray decided to write those songs about the
various US states himself, or at
least commissioned new creations from contemporary Brill Building
songwriters, things might have been different; but all of these tunes are
oldies, mainly out of the vaults of various white Tin Pan Alley composers
(only ‘Basin Street Blues’ is associated primarily with Dixieland), and Sid
Feller’s production of them strictly concentrates on Ray Charles as the suave
singer in a ballroom jazz band, downplaying his piano skills and almost
completely foregoing the wild energy of his classic R&B recordings.
My main problem with this album,
actually, are not the big band arrangements per se; my main problem is that
the big band arrangements almost completely neutralize the differences
between these songs. What is the
point of namedropping twelve atmospherically, culturally, spiritually
different locations all across the USA if you do not even strive to reflect
those differences in the music? When ‘Moonlight In Vermont’ is reflected
across your living room at the exact same angle as ‘Moon Over Miami’, and
when the musical celebration on ‘Basin Street Blues’ is barely
distinguishable from the welcome ceremony of ‘California, Here I Come’, then
how exactly does this concept rise above the status of a mere promotional
gimmick? I fail to discern anything properly Hawaiian about ‘Blue Hawaii’,
anything specifically Texan in ‘Deep In The Heart Of Texas’, and when a song
like ‘Mississippi Mud’ gives off the scent of a Las Vegas casino rather than
any actual Mississippi mud, you know you’re in for a classic, proverbial
Artistic Failure.
I wouldn’t want to imply that
somebody like Ray Charles could be altogether unqualified to put out a large
conceptual album about America. After all, he did tour all across the
country, and as we know, lack of one particular sense (vision) is often
compensated by intensification of all other ones, so that the sounds, smells,
tastes, feels of all those places he sings about could very well be imprinted
in his mind and soul. But he does absolutely nothing here to make us sense
these imprints, leaving most of the musical direction to Sid Feller and, for
the most part, just feeling happy being his usual Ray Charles self. When
Gordon Jenkins wrote his ‘Manhattan Tower’ suite
back in 1946, or when Sammy Davis Jr., with his own long story of Broadway
work, sang it back in
1956, this made perfect sense. When Ray Charles complains about St.
Louis, singing "let’s face it, it
hasn’t got the opera in The Met, it hasn’t got a famous string quartet",
it sounds ridiculous. As in, utterly and completely ridiculous. Why not
‘Autumn In New York’ at least, pitting Ray against Billie Holiday, rather
than a song that directly clashes with both the concept and Ray’s own
spirit?..
Occasional
attempts at extra humor are no good, either: on ‘Deep In The Heart Of Texas’,
for instance, Feller keeps trying to engage in a «dialog» with Ray ("The stars at night are big and bright..."
– "Where does that happen, Ray?"),
posing as a certified idiot ("The
coyotes wail along the trail..." – "Did this happen in New York, Ray?") in order to turn the
song into an official bit of musical comedy; but the effect is not funny, it
is annoying, and the whole thing sounds like a mockery of the Lone Star
rather than a tribute — and even then, in name only, because the lumbering
brassy arrangement is not reminiscent of Texas in any way possible, unlike, say, the classic Gene Autry version
(and I am quite indifferent to Gene Autry in general, but at least here we
can talk about certain authenticity).
Every once
in a while, Ray does hit on a nice vibe; a bunch of these tracks could
probably be salvaged and make decent inclusions on any non-conceptual record where they would simply be enjoyed by
themselves, rather than become inevitably diminished by their status as parts
of a bulky unconvincing whole. The vocals are particularly friendly and
inviting on the closing ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’, for instance; and the change
of pace for ‘Carry Me Back To Old Virginny’, with emphasis on Ray’s piano
rather than horns and with the Raelettes providing a suitable gospel backing,
is very welcome — it is probably the only song on here that truly sounds like
classic, «authentic» Atlantic-era Charles. Omitting all of the song’s
controversial original references to "darkies" and "laboring
so hard for old massa" that were way too much for black artists back
in 1960, Ray pretty much turns "old Virginny" into an allegory for
Heaven itself (not that this wasn’t the original composition’s intention, of
course), and it works out beautifully for him — and for us.
But it
certainly wasn’t ‘Carry Me Back To Old Virginny’ that would become Ray’s
defining moment from this album — the song is way too old, creaky, and
controversial for that. If, on the other hand, you happen to have grown tired
and weary of the ubiquitousness of ‘Georgia On My Mind’, re-appreciating the
song after it’s been done to death in a million ways after Ray’s version might be a little easier if we go all the way
back to the pre-Ray versions —
starting with Hoagy
Carmichael’s original and including, for instance, Billie Holiday’s rather light take on
the song, or Jo Stafford’s somewhat more pompous
delivery — and realize that it was Ray and only Ray who finally realized all
of its potential. The simple truth is that nobody, not even the song’s own
composer, ever had the right idea of how to sing the line "No peace I find" until Ray came
along and showed us all what it really means to not be able to find any
peace.
There’s a
lengthy historical debate about the song — of whether it was really written
about the state of Georgia or about Hoagy Carmichael’s sister — but in
reality it was written about the exact same thing as ‘Carry Me Back To Old
Virginny’: the idea of an unreachable ideal of beauty, a coveted Platonic
state of bliss that may not even exist in reality but feels perfectly real in
one’s mind. It’s a millennia-old artistic trope, of course, but all great
artists have their own ways of expressing it, and all musical works that use
it wait for the perfect artist to come along and express it. Here, even Sid
Feller, a guy for whom I do not feel that much love, to be honest, gives the
song a perfect extra touch with that opening heart-tugging string intro —
old-fashioned, yes, Hollywoodish, yes, but how many songs that open with
old-fashioned Hollywoodish strings are instantly recognizable in the first
two seconds? And the real reason we love Ray’s version is precisely because
it puts so much emphasis on the here
and now of it, on the where we are
rather than where we’d like to be.
In his vision, it is not a song about Georgia, whoever and wherever she is —
it is a song about his mind and the
state it is in: weary, worn-out by toil and disappointment, only finding
salvation in an unattainable dream which he knows very well is unattainable,
but as long as he is free to dream that dream, it’s something worth living
for. All of this was, at best, implied in the previously recorded versions of
the song; much of it, I think, remains poorly understood and thought out by
people who spam the YouTube comment section with happy outbursts of "hey, I’m a 50-year old Georgian and I love
this song!", but I don’t doubt for a second that their basic
emotional reaction to the song is exactly the same as mine.
It’s
actually quite instructive to compare ‘Georgia On My Mind’ with some of the
other slow, sentimental ballads on the album — like ‘Moon Over Miami’, for
instance. All the ingredients — strings, backing vocals, soulful lead — are
essentially the same, but the final result is, at best, «pleasant» in a
background-muzak kind of way, and at worst, «detestable» in a
corny-sentimental kind of way. This is because there is no depth to the song,
open or hidden, and Ray is unable to find any interesting approaches to make
it come to life. It’s just a generic crooning serenade, and he cannot make it
extra sexy, or extra ironic, or extra angelic (as, perhaps, the Beach Boys
could have). When the opportunity arises, few people in the world can sing
about looking for a break from hundreds of years of trouble and toil as fine
as Ray. But singing about people who know not what trouble and toil is in the
first place? Better leave that to white California kids, Brother Ray.
All said, The Genius Hits The Road is, at the
very least, an interesting and — as you might already have guessed — quite a
thought-provoking misfire. Even if I won’t ever be putting more than two
songs off it (you already know which ones) on my general Ray Charles
playlist, the concept itself and the reasons for its poor realization are a
useful-and-fun topic for analysis. And, at the very least, it shows that
Ray’s search for new ways of making music and expressing himself was anything
but done with his transition to a bigger, more lucrative label — and, as it
happens, a great artist’s failures can sometimes be far more impressive than
a mediocre artist’s mediocre stability.
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