Customer Reviews

Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul/Have a Smile With Me

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What more need be said about Brother Ray that hasn't been said already? He's the greatest, pure genius.
Interesting sidenote: check out "Ol' Man River" with headphones & listen carefully...you can hear a very faint ghost voice before certain phrases Ray sings. I thought it might have been one of the background singers reading the chart a little too loud at first but realized it was probably the engineer or producer on the session giving Brother Ray the lines through his headphones just before he was to sing them (someone please correct me if this is wrong)...Ray was blind, so obviously he didn't have the benefit of reading a chart on the session; some of the tunes were probably decided upon right then & there without the benefit of a thorough rehearsal.

I've looking for this version of Over the Rainbow by Ray Charles, it's just great. I've heard the final part of it in Sleepless in Seattle... (for 3 years I've been told it did not exist)

Given the CD format's ability to contain a generous 80 minutes of material nowadays, Rhino took full advantage of it. The result is a two-for-the price-of-one display of just 2 sides of many The Genius displayed.

The first half, "Ingredients In A Recipe For Soul" is prime Grade-A Ray! Some of the highlights:

Busted - Classic tale of woe when the crops dry up, so hard to believe it was originally a simple C&W song if you didn't know it beforehand. Rays powers of reinterpretation were second to none!

Where Can I Go? Abject loneliness never sounded so beautiful and smoldering.

That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) Ray sure had away of making C7W his own and you can really feel the exaspiration in every note

Stranger in Town - A great track from the movie "The Cincinnatti Kid"

Over the Rainbow - Very dramatic treatment with full orchestra and singers too.

Ray definitely gives it his all here in a wide variety of moods and settings from gritty R&B/Swing to haunting ballads and pain drenched C&W.

The second half of the package "Have A Smile With Me" was intended to show the more playful, swinging and fun side of Ray, and largely succeeds ("Smack Dab In The Middle" for instance) though not entirely, some of the novelty songs don't wear well with repeated listenings but all-told, a good smattering of tracks for a party where there's swing dancing involved.

Good stuff, all considered.

Especially Over the rainbow.Has never been performed as good as this one .I have nine different version of this song, but Ray outperform the other performers .

This CD is Brother Ray at his best. Listen to track 12 "The Brightest Smile in Town" and you'll be a believer too.

Having owned or heard most of Ray Charles' records, Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul is my favorite. It offers classic hits ("Busted"), great American standards ("Ol' Man River" and "Over the Rainbow") and no filler whatsoever. Ray was at the very top of his game, and with the help of Marty Paich, one of the most brilliant arrangers of the period, he managed to outdo even himself with Ingredients'. Even lesser-known tracks like "Where Can I Go?" and "That Lucky Old Sun" astonish and amaze. (Interestingly, Ray performs two Mel Tormé songs on this record -- "Born to Be Blue" and "A Stranger in Town" -- both of which may have come to Ray through Paich, who had partnered with Tormé to create some of the most ground-breaking jazz vocal albums of the '50s and '60s.) Others may disagree, but I also appreciate the decision to cut back on the syrupy choirs Ray tended to use during the period.

This particular version also includes 1964's Have a Smile With Me on the same disc -- not Ray's best, but still fun. "Smack Dab in the Middle" alone makes up for the cheesy novelty songs.

If you're ready to move past the anthologies and start buying some original Ray Charles albums, Ingredients In a Recipe for Soul is an excellent place to start. You would also do well to pick up The Genius of Ray Charles (1959) on the Atlantic label. You'd have to be dead not to love these records.

THIS CD CONTAINS TWO CD'S OF RAY CHARLES FROM THE MID 1960'S ON THE ABC LABEL. IT IS VINTAGE RAY, WHEN HE HAD EXPANDED HIS VISION OF HIS MUSIC WITH BIG BAND, CHORUS, STRING SECTION, AND AS ALWAYS, HIS BEAUTIFUL, SOULFUL SINGING. SOME PEOPLE MAY COMPLAIN THAT HIS MUSIC HAD BECOME TOO "MAINSTREAM" OR "COMMERICAL" BY THIS TIME, BUT IF YOU LISTEN TO IT, IT SOUNDS PERFECT, SO HE MUST HAVE BEEN DOING SOMETHING (OR MANY THINGS) RIGHT. BUT WHEN HE LETS IT ALL HANG OUT ON A SONG LIKE "IN THE EVENING", FOR EXAMPLE, YOU STILL HEAR WHAT IT WAS THAT MADE HIM GREAT IN THE FIRST PLACE. DEFINITELY BETTER THAN ANYTHING HE RECORDED IN HIS LATTER DAYS.

this cd is different, easy to listen to. songs that my parent sung to me when i was growing up in a different version... 'old man river' and 'somewhere over the rainbow.' good to cook dinner to.