Customer Reviews

My World

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At the age of 63, Ray had amazing energy! This is such an uplifting recording. Title track "My World," "Song for You" are gems!! "None of Us Are Free" is perhaps the best track, which is very positive. In "So Help Me God" Ray is gracefully being humble about the mistakes he has made in his life, a beautiful song. "Let Me Take Over" a super dancing song. (Deb and I in the kitchen, Ha!)
"I'll Be There" is also wonderfully done. "Still Crazy After All These Years" written by Paul Simon is very artfully interpreted.

Go out and buy this....it is a great find! :)

Ray Charles has done it once again. In "My World", he's put together his traditional rythm and blues with powerful ballads that moves the soul. My favorite, "Song For You", reminds me of all the important people that I am there for. And, None of Us Are Free, reminds me of that as long as here on earth, we should think about one another equally.

If you love Ray Charles you'll really enjoy this cd.Ray puts his special touch on modern day hits like "If I could","still crazy" and "A Song For You". The way he sings these songs will make you believe he feels every word deep in his heart. But, the song "So Help Me God" is worth the price of the cd,try listening to that one and not get choked up! You won't just hear the songs you'll feel them and want to sing along. Buy it and enjoy Ray doing his thing.

I love this whole album, but one track alone makes it worth your while to purchase this cd. Leon Russell's "A Song For You" has been sung by any number of talented vocalists, but Ray Charles' rendition here makes every other version sound pale, flat and limp in comparison. He just knocks it out of the park. As he so often did, Ray takes a great song and wrenches every last bit of feeling out of it. I seriously doubt it'll ever be topped.

Call me a heretic, but I never was able to stand the original version of Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years". When I said as much to friends back when it was getting airplay, they'd look at me as if I'd just denied the existence of God. After all, the album named after this song was considered the definitive Paul Simon album for many years. It was only a year or so ago that I heard Ray Charles' version on my local jazz station and I realized what had been wrong. Simon's somewhat monochromatic voice may be adequate for most of his material (at least I think so, owning several of his other albums myself), but that vocal style simply didn't work on this obviously Gospel-influenced tune. It's usually the other way around: Van Morrison's original of "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" beats hell out of Rod Stewart's better-known cover. Ditto Bruce Springsteen's live version of "Because the Night" over Patti Smith's hit single of it. But the problem with "Still Crazy" was that Simon had written a natural Ray Charles song which he made the mistake of releasing himself. Buy this album (even if you LIKE the Simon version) and you'll see what I mean.

An incredible cd that I have owned for 6 years again and I continue to be amazed by the pure talent of Ray Charles. This cd is a must. Help me God is on the top of the list and the other tracks are equally as great. I just wish I could find more music that is this great. I have over 1000 cd's from Aerosmith to Yanni and this is definetly a standout. Do yourself a favor and buy this. You will not regret it.

The standout song on this album for me was A song for You which I think is a classic.Still crazy after all these years is a good song. Regina Belle does way better with If I Could but all in all this is not a bad set of songs.

From the opening cooker, My World, this is a hot collection of songs when Ray was in top form, especially after I had seen him perform just months before in Las Vegas. Ray had finally stretched to go beyond his "usual" style and as any accomplished artist likes to do, went into a new (and funky) area.

Produced by Richard Perry, it doesn't get much better. The musicians are exceptional: Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Paul Jackson Jr., Greg Phillinganes, just to name a few. Ray's vocals are soulful. He reaches beyond his standards to create some up-tempo tunes that are special and funky. The ballads are rich and gospel-tinged. This one is a must for any Ray Charles fan.

Even after the tenative comeback album Would You Believe a lot of people who probably thinking how Ray Charles could be the least bit relevant to the R&B audience of the early 90's. Almost an entire decade and a half in creative limbo,spending much of it recording country pop records in Nashville had very much seperated Ray from what was going on in the ever changing R&B/soul world after the late 60's. The musical revolutions of funk,Philly soul,disco and the early years of hip-hop had totally escaped Charles because he hadn't gotton the chance to make the difference in these musical subgenres as he had in soul music's beginning. So what on Earth was the old "genius of soul" going to do in 1993 aside from making music only for his generation? Well from what I've heard from talk shows and interviews at the time Ray Charles didn't have many kind things to say about hip-hop or any related musical styles. I am not sure of this because they are second hand but whatever the case this was recording in a certain era. And since Ray's plan with producer Richard Perry was to grab back a little of the R&B audience he'd begun to re-grasp at on his contributions to Quincy Jones' Back on the Block,he along with keeping many of the same musicians from that album (which he did here) would have little choice but to embrace a style he might not have been comfortable with at first:hip-hop/R&B. This album doesn't contain any new jack swing uptempo cuts but rather the similar but more grounded sound of hip-hop styled soul. The title song,"None Of Us Are Free","Let Me Take You Over","One Drop Of Love" and "I'll Be There" are all explosive uptempo comebacks for Ray-embracing contemporary beats but also keeping Ray's patented electric piano sound intact. Another element expressive of an era Ray missed out on big time was the use of James Brown scream samples: a trademark of all hip-hop based musics of this era and no irony was lost that Ray Charles was in this manner embracing James Brown,the man who more or less took over for him as souls next great innovator. These are message songs that expressive urban ills such as poverty,violence and dispondance in the general hip-hop manner but also have the flavor of an avuncular grandfather offering a form of salvation and compromise everyone can agree works. The added gospel choruses,plus the backup singing on the latter song of Mavis Staples are only icing on the already sweet cake. In his signiture soul ballad style Ray also delivers simply brilliant takes on Leon Russell's "A Song For You" and Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years". Ray's talents as an interpretive singer and pianist are of course as legendary a part of his musical being as his original works and on these songs Ray shwocases that he HASN'T LOST ONE STEP in that direction and almost seems like an indellible stitch in music history that never dies and ages. Some of the older members of his audience might not be tolerant to the heavy hip-hop/funk of the uptempo material here but even if they have an open mind they'll not only see the connective thread there but how the style helped reinvent Ray Charles in the 90's as still having something new and even original to offer the R&B/soul world from which he began.

Ray Charles is the best. "A Little Drop of Love" is a wonderful song to dance West Coast Swing to. Love it!