Ray Charles – True Genius (Remastered) (2021) [FLAC 24bit/48kHz]

In honor of what would have been Ray Charles’ 90th birthday year, Tangerine Records is releasing the limited edition box set, True Genius, on September 10th. The record label, which the late legend founded in 1962, has remastered 90 of Charles’ most important works for the six-CD box set.

The collection also includes a bonus disc comprising eight previously unreleased songs, which were recorded live in Stockholm in 1972. It includes his hits “What’d I Say,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and “I’ve Got a Woman.”

The digital release will also be widely available on streaming platforms for the first time. “Hit the Road Jack,” “Crying Time,” “Busted, “America the Beautiful, A Song for You,” and “Unchain My Heart” are among Charles’ classics that will return to streaming after more than a decade. “Hit the Road Jack,” one of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, has also received a new animated lyric video.

“We’re extremely proud to present this collection, which maps the breadth and depth of Ray Charles’ music, presented in chronological order so the listener can join Ray on his journey through the most expansive and creative period of his legendary career,” Valeri Ervin, President of Ray Charles Foundation, said in a statement. “I’m also thrilled that this music will be widely available on all streaming services for the very first time, so that new and future audiences will continue to discover the True Genius of Ray Charles.”

In the year of his 90th birthday (which he would have celebrated on the 23rd of September 2020 had he not died in 2004), Ray Charles is honoured with a new 90-track compilation box set. Just another compilation like all the rest? Yes and no. Ray Charles is undoubtedly one of the most-compiled artists in the history of music. Published by Tangerine, the label that the musician set up at the end of the 50s to keep the rights to his songs, this box set starts out like all the others: with the post-Atlantic hits, Georgia On My Mind, Hit The Road Jack, One Mint Julep, Busted… These are timeless treasures of proto-soul, but there doesn’t seem to be much novelty here. The rest is much more interesting, and much rarer: tracks recorded between the second half of the 1960s and the 2000s, many of which were only released on vinyl, never reissued on CD and until now unavailable on digital. This is the first time that Ray Charles’ lesser-known years have been given the compilation treatment in this way, and it is a revelation. In the 90s and 2000s, the production of his songs had a synthetic feel, and they did not age too well. These rarer songs are often hidden gems of southern soul, flavoured with country and wrapped in sumptuous symphonic orchestrations. Whether he is singing the Muppets (It’s Ain’t Easy Being Green) or Gershwin (Summertime, a duet with Cleo Laine), Ray Charles is always deeply moving. Now, the dream is to hear reissues of all these albums in their entirety. – St’ephane Deschamps

Tracklist:
01. Georgia on My Mind
02. Them That Got
03. Ruby
04. Hardhearted Hannah
05. One Mint Julep
06. I’ve Got News for You
07. I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town
08. Hit the Road Jack
09. Unchain My Heart
10. Baby, It’s Cold Outside
11. Hide Nor Hair
12. I Can’t Stop Loving You
13. You Don’t Know Me
14. You Are My Sunshine
15. Take These Chains from My Heart
16. No One
17. Busted
18. That Lucky Old Sun
19. Baby, Don’t You Cry
20. Smack Dab in the Middle
21. My Heart Cries for You
22. Cry
23. Makin’ Woopie (Live)
24. Hallelujah I Love Her So (Live)
25. I’ve Got A Woman (Live)
26. What’d I Say (Live)
27. I’m a Fool to Care
28. The Cincinnati Kid
29. Crying Time
30. Together Again
31. Let’s Go Get Stoned
32. Please Say You’re Fooling
33. I Don’t Need No Doctor
34. Here We Go Again
35. Somebody Ought to Write a Book About It
36. In the Heat of the Night
37. Yesterday
38. Sweet Young Thing Like You
39. Eleanor Rigby
40. If It Wasn’t for Bad Luck
41. I Didn’t Know What Time It Was
42. Let Me Love You
43. I’m Satisfied
44. We Can Make It
45. Laughin and Clownin
46. If You Were Mine
47. Booty Butt
48. Feel so Bad
49. Your Love Is so Doggone Good
50. Something
51. America the Beautiful
52. Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma
53. There’ll Be No Peace Without All Men as One
54. Every Saturday Night
55. Our Suite
56. I Can Make It Through The Days (But Oh Those Lonely Nights)
57. Ring of Fire
58. Come Live with Me
59. Somebody
60. Till There Was You
61. Living for the City
62. It Ain’t Easy Being Green
63. 3/4 of the Time
64. Summertime
65. Take Me Home Country Roads (Live)
66. Am I Blue (Live)
67. I Can See Clearly Now
68. How Long Has This Been Going On
69. Let It Be
70. Is There Anyone Out There?
71. Drift Away
72. Blues in the Night
73. 3/4 Time
74. Compared to What
75. Do I Ever Cross Your Mind
76. Two Old Cats Like Us
77. Seven Spanish Angels
78. Anybody with the Blues Knows
79. Baby Grand
80. Stranger in My Own Home Town
81. Save the Bones for Henry Jones
82. Ellie My Love
83. I’ll Be Good to You
84. A Song for You
85. Still Crazy After All These Years
86. If I Could
87. None of Us Are Free
88. Imagine
89. Here We Go Again
90. The Long and Winding Road