Review: Ray Charles - Yes Indeed!! (1958)
Tracks: 1) What Would I Do Without You; 2) It’s All Right; 3) I Want To Know; 4) Yes Indeed!; 5) Get On The Right Track Baby; 6) Talkin’ ’Bout You; 7) Swanee River Rock; 8) Lonely Avenue; 9) Blackjack; 10) The Sun’s Gonna Shine Again; 11) I Had A Dream; 12) I Want A Little Girl; 13) Heartbreaker; 14) Leave My Woman Alone.
REVIEW
This is more like it — once again, we have Ray Charles in his natural habitat, blasting off three-minute long R&B singles instead of hopelessly competing with the monsters of jazz. The only problem is that Yes Indeed! is, in fact, just another compilation, following exactly the same model as Ray Charles — and, second time around, it is not nearly as efficient. Curiously, if you look at Ray’s chart history, you will quickly notice that 1957–58 marked an odd lull in his commercial fortune: in between ‘Ain’t That Love’ in early 1957 and ‘Night Time Is The Right Time’ in early 1959, he did not manage to place anything in the top 10. Given that the same period coincided with his investiture into jazz (besides The Great Ray Charles, there was also Soul Brothers, a collaboration with the wonderful vibraphonist Milt Jackson, in mid-1958), it may be assumed that during these years, he was genuinely trying to get himself into the league of «serious musicians», and consequently paying less attention to the quality of his «lightweight» R&B material. Once that alternate career failed to properly take off, the Father of Soul would quickly be back with ‘Night Time’ and ‘What’d I Say’ — doing precisely what he was born to do.
In the meantime, Yes Indeed!, released in the fall of 1958, did a fairly good job of putting together four of Ray’s most recent A-sides along with most of the corresponding B-sides, and further padding out the LP with leftovers dating all the way back to 1953 (although a few of these still ended up left behind and had to wait until What’d I Say next year). Since the bulk of the album still consists of 1957–58 recordings, playing it back to back with Ray Charles will most likely yield the same result it yields for me — good, not great. Out of these 14 tracks, I think that only ‘Lonely Avenue’ has managed to become a stone cold classic, though ‘It’s All Right’, ‘Talkin’ ’Bout You’, and ‘Leave My Woman Alone’ were also popular enough with UK audiences to deserve being covered by many British R&B bands.
Let us, therefore, start by focusing our attention on that particular song, one of the earliest successful compositions by Doc Pomus. It is highly unusual in terms of its overall rhythmic structure, but whenever I start to think if there is anything else it reminds me of, my association train always leads me to ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ — not just because both songs explore identical emotional territory, but also because both do it with the aid of the same pounding ka-boom, ka-boom, ka-boom rhythm, with its relentless thick bass attack on the strong beat. The difference is that ‘Lonely Avenue’ further pursues this in the vocal performance, which Ray persistently chops up in mini-segments aligned with the beat — "now my ROOM... has GOT... two WIN-dows... but the SUN-shine NE-ver... comes THRU..." At the very least, this is an intriguing, previously unheard-of manner of singing that just grabs your attention. At most, it is a daring impersonation of a sort of post-emotional state, as of one choking down on one’s very voice already after having ruined oneself with anger, rage, hysteria, and sobbing. Only the backing vocals by the Cookies provide a slightly more emotional vocal counterpoint to this ruthless monotony — but it works fine until the very end. Because of this sacrificial self-restriction, ‘Lonely Avenue’ is hardly the place to study all the subtleties of Ray’s vocal strategies, but it is another brilliant example of his versatility and love for all sorts of out-of-the-box tricks at the peak of his career.
The B-side for that single couldn’t be more different, though: ‘Leave My Woman Alone’ was placed last on this LP, in the exact same spot as ‘I Got A Woman’ on Ray Charles, to finish off the whole thing with a fast ecstatic blast of energy and exuberance — except that ‘Leave My Woman Alone’ throws in an extra aggressive punch, being just a tad darker and angrier ("if I ever see my little girl in your new car, I’m gonna do some work on you" and all that). This time, there is no space left for even a sax solo — the entire last minute is given over to Uncle Ray raving and ranting, with the Cookies as his steady anchor in the background. This is the humble beginning of the «soul trance» ritual which Ray obviously nicked from the gospel tradition and introduced to the three-minute pop single — and one year later, he would finally dare to turn an entire three-minute pop single into such a ritual, with ‘Talkin’ ’Bout You’, which is just a straightforward gospel rocker converted into a love anthem with minimal adjustments to the lyrics. In fact, part of the reason why ‘Talkin’ ’Bout You’ did not chart might have had to do with people mistaking the song for a bona fide gospel number because of its title — and not being particularly interested in supporting Uncle Ray’s gospel ambitions, much as they were unenthusiastic about supporting his jazz crossover earlier. (This is just speculation on my part, but it would be fun to see myself proven right!)
Notably, 1957 also witnessed Ray’s very first experiment in adapting old standards to his new style — the cover of ‘Swanee River’, instructively retitled as ‘Swanee River Rock’; this path would eventually lead him to ‘My Bonnie’ and then, of course, to his general interest in reshaping the old folk and country traditions, black and white alike. It’s hardly a classic, more of a solid stepping stone on the road to something bigger, but it does stand out among other recordings of golden oldies by contemporary Atlantic artists — just by explicitly not being a respectful homage to the musical tastes of older generations, but rather a smashing attempt to appropriate the musical legacy of older generations and make it bend and adapt to the changing standards of a new world. Much in the same vein comes the title track, ‘Yes Indeed’, adapted from a pre-war jazz composition by Sy Oliver (best known in Tommy Dorsey’s version): again, not one of Ray’s most inventive or stunning performances, but rather an important statement of self-affirmation.
The problem is, the farther back in time we go with this LP, the more self-repetition we encounter. For instance, ‘Blackjack’ is a cool old blues tune with a fine sample of Ray’s piano playing, but it largely has the same melody and vibe as ‘Sinner’s Prayer’, which was unquestionably superior — it is understandable why Atlantic did not put both tunes on the same album, even if ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ was originally a B-side and ‘Blackjack’ was the A-side (instead, Ray Charles had ‘Greenbacks’, the B-side to ‘Blackjack’, which was clearly a far more original creation). And ‘What Would I Do Without You’, the B-side to ‘Hallelujah I Love Her So’, is basically an inferior rewrite of ‘Drown In My Own Tears’, utilizing the same tempo and piano riff to somewhat weaker effect. Meanwhile, the oldest songs on this collection are, well, old enough to remind us of Ray’s beginnings as an imitator rather than innovator: ‘The Sun’s Gonna Shine Again’ (his second Atlantic single) sounds more or less like early blues-de-luxe era B. B. King, and ‘Heartbreaker’ (a B-side from the same year of 1953) is old-fashioned jump blues in the style of somebody like Wynonie Harris (though, amusingly, in the piano intro Ray manages to insert some of the chords from ‘Mess Around’, probably because his first hit was still so fresh in his memory).
None of this, of course, is a big problem: nobody should expect every second recording by Ray to be a groundbreaking masterpiece. The average «age of relevancy» for a solid 1950s artist was about 2-3 years anyway, making Ray one of the few unbeatable record setters by any accounts; even so, he was still a commercial entertainer, somewhat restricted and directed by market laws of the time, and would remain in this capacity until the end of his days — which means, by definition, the need to constantly satisfy the demand for «we want more of the exact same thing!!» Indeed, if you are a major fan who genuinely wants more of the exact same thing, Yes Indeed! is the perfect second album after you have worn out your copy of Ray Charles, memorizing every last note of it. Or, like me, you could just go, "hey, this is the one with ‘Lonely Avenue’ and ‘Leave My Woman Alone’ on it, that’s quite enough for a passing grade already". Or you could just admit that, like any Ray Charles record from that era, it all just sounds excellent, and that instead of wasting our life debating whether ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ or ‘Blackjack’ is the better song, we could go help recycle some plastic or plant a tree.
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