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The Birth Of Soul
''The Birth of Soul: The Complete Atlantic Rhythm and Blues Recordings'' is a 3-CD box set compilation by Ray Charles, released in 1991. Critical reception In a contemporary review, Peter Watrous of '' The New York Times'' said that the box set "tracks the progress of a figure who profoundly changed what was possible in American music." He ranked it as the twelfth best album of 1991. ''The Birth of Soul'' was voted the third best reissue of the year in '' The Village Voice''s annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1991. In 2003, the album was ranked number 54 on '' Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, then dropping to number 210 in a 2020 reboot of the list. In a retrospective article for the magazine, Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called "Brother Ray". Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma. Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two ''Modern Sounds'' albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company. Charles's 1960 hit "Georgia On My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the ''Billboard'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became an early proponent of musical movements such as hip hop, riot grrrl, and the import of African popular music in the West. Christgau spent 37 years as the chief music critic and senior editor for ''The Village Voice'', during which time he created and oversaw the annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. He has also covered popular music for ''Esquire'', ''Creem'', ''Newsday'', ''Playboy'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''Billboard'', NPR, ''Blender'', and ''MSN Music'', and was a visiting arts teacher at New York University. CNN senior writer Jamie Allen has called Christgau "the E. F. Hutton of the music world – when he talks, people listen." Christgau is best known for his terse, letter-graded capsule album reviews, composed in a concentrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mess Around
The "Mess Around" is a song written by Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder and then-vice-president of Atlantic Records, under the pseudonym of A. Nugetre, or "Nuggy". It was performed by Ray Charles, and was one of Charles's first hits. Origins and composition Ertegun claimed his inspiration for writing the "Mess Around" was stride pianist Pete Johnson. Earlier versions of the tune's New Orleans boogie piano riff can be heard in songs from the early 1930s and 1940s, with perhaps the earliest example being Charles "Cow Cow" Davenport's "Cow Cow Blues" from 1928. Dr. John also spoke about the origin of this tune on his ''Dr John Teaches New Orleans Piano'' series of DVDs. The song's lyrics urge listeners to dance ("everybody do the Mess Around"), along with a few other key phrases, notably "see that girl with the red dress on", harkening back to "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie", Pinetop Smith's early boogie-woogie classic. Release "Mess Around" became a big R&B charted hit when released as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lloyd Glenn
Lloyd Colquitt Glenn (November 21, 1909 – May 23, 1985) was an American R&B pianist, bandleader and arranger, who was a pioneer of the "West Coast" blues style. Career Born in San Antonio, Texas, from the late 1920s, Glenn played with various jazz bands in the Dallas and San Antonio areas, first recording in 1936 with Don Albert's Orchestra. He moved to California in 1941, joining the Walter Johnson trio in 1944, and finding employment as a session musician and arranger. He accompanied T-Bone Walker on his 1947 hit "Call It Stormy Monday", and later the same year made his own first solo records, billed as Lloyd Glenn and His Joymakers. In 1949 he joined Swing Time Records as A&R man, and recorded a number of hits with Lowell Fulson, including "Everyday I Have the Blues" and the #1 R&B hit "Blue Shadows". He also had major R&B hits of his own, with "Old Time Shuffle Blues" (#3 U.S. Billboard R&B chart in 1950) being followed by "Chica Boo", which also made #1 on the R&B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lowell Fulson
Lowell Fulson (March 31, 1921March 7, 1999) was an American blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. He also recorded for contractual reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom. After T-Bone Walker, he was the most important figure in West Coast blues in the 1940s and 1950s. Early life Fulson was born on a Choctaw reservation in Atoka, Oklahoma, to Mamie and Martin Fulson. He stated that he was of Cherokee ancestry through his father but also claimed Choctaw ancestry. His father was killed when Lowell was a child, and a few years later, he moved with his mother and brothers to live in Clarita and attended school at Coalgate. Career At the age of eighteen, he moved to Ada, Oklahoma, and joined Alger "Texas" Alexander for a few months in 1940, but later moved to California, where he formed a band which soon included a young Ray Charles and the tenor saxophone player Stanley Turrentine. Fulson was drafted in 1943 and served in the U.S. Navy until 194 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegun (, Turkish spelling: Ahmet Ertegün; ; – December 14, 2006) was a Turkish-American businessman, songwriter, record executive and philanthropist. Ertegun was the co-founder and president of Atlantic Records. He discovered and championed many leading rhythm and blues and rock musicians. Ertegun also wrote classic blues and pop songs. He served as the chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum, located in Cleveland, Ohio. Ertegun has been described as "one of the most significant figures in the modern recording industry." In 2017 he was inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in recognition of his work in the music business. Ertegun helped foster ties between the U.S. and Turkey, his birthplace. He served as the chairman of the American Turkish Society for over 20 years until his death. He also co-founded the New York Cosmos soccer team of the original North American Soccer League. Background Ahmet was born in 1923 in Constantinople, O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jesse Stone
Jesse Albert Stone (November 16, 1901 – April 1, 1999) was an American rhythm and blues musician and songwriter whose influence spanned a wide range of genres. He also used the pseudonyms Charles Calhoun and Chuck Calhoun. His best-known composition as Calhoun was "Shake, Rattle and Roll". Ahmet Ertegun once stated that "Jesse Stone did more to develop the basic rock 'n' roll sound than anybody else." Early life Stone was born in Atchison, Kansas, United States, and raised in Kansas. His grandparents were formerly enslaved in Tennessee. Stone was influenced by a wide array of styles. He came from a musical family who put on minstrel shows, and performed with them by age of five. He was part of a trained dog act at the age of four. Career By 1926, Stone had formed a group, the Blue Serenaders, and cut his first record, "Starvation Blues", for Okeh Records in 1927. For the next few years he worked as a pianist and arranger in Kansas City, recording with Julia Lee amon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eddie Curtis
Eddie "Memphis" Evans Curtis, Jr. (17 July 1927 – 22 August 1983) was an American songwriter, born in Galveston, Texas. He is credited as a co-writer along with Steve Miller and Ahmet Ertegun for "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band, which became a U.S. number one single on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 for the week of January 12, 1974 and U.K. No.1 single in 1990. "The Joker" used a line from Curtis's song, "Lovey Dovey", which was recorded by numerous artists, beginning with the R&B group The Clovers in 1954. Elements of "The Joker" were used for Shaggy's international number one hit "Angel" (2001), which Curtis also received a co-writing credit for. Curtis also wrote Don Cherry's 1956 hit "Wild Cherry" and Connie Francis' 1959 hit "You're Gonna Miss Me." Curtis wrote "It Should've Been Me," recorded by Ray Charles in 1953 for the Atlantic label. The song also appears on the album ''We've Got a Live One Here'' by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, recorded in 1976, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
It Should've Been Me (song)
"It Should've Been Me" is a 1954 rhythm and blues song written by Memphis Curtis, produced by Ahmet Ertegun and recorded and released as a single by American singer Ray Charles. Recorded at the same May 10, 1953 session as the boogie-woogie-like R&B hit " Mess Around", which was written by Ertegun and released first, "It Should've Been Me" played on a comedic rap vibe/jive in which Charles talked about certain instances where he was smitten with "fine chicks" only to be dismayed that they had partners causing Charles (and in background vocal, Atlantic session musician and writer Jesse Stone), to say "it should have been (him) with (those) real fine chick(s)." Despite being blind since the age of seven, Ray repeatedly states in the song that he saw different things and different "chicks." Released in early 1954, the song became Charles' first charted hit for Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhino Entertainment
Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company founded in 1978. It is currently the catalog division for Warner Music Group. Its current CEO is Mark Pinkus. History Founded in 1978, Rhino was originally a novelty and reissue label during the 1970s and 1980s. It released compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes from the 1950s through the 1980s, as well as novelty-song LPs (compiled in-house or by Dr. Demento) and retrospectives of famous comedy performers, including Richard Pryor, Stan Freberg, Tom Lehrer, and Spike Jones. Rhino started as a record shop on Westwood Boulevard, Los Angeles, in 1973, run by Richard Foos, and became a record distributor five years later thanks to the effort of then-store manager Harold Bronson. Their early releases were mostly novelty records (such as their first single, in 1975, Wild Man Fischer's "Go To Rhino Records"). The difficulties involved in getting airplay and distr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Raelettes
The Raelettes (or occasionally The Raelets or The Raeletts) were an American girl group formed in 1958 to provide backing vocals for Ray Charles. They were reformed from the group The Cookies. Between 1966 and 1973, the Raelettes recorded on Tangerine Records as a separate act produced and accompanied by Charles. History Reformed by Ray Charles from the all-girl singing group The Cookies, Charles first invited The Cookies for a recording session in New York City, in August 1956, where they taped "Lonely Avenue", "I Want To Know" and "Leave My Woman Alone". The Cookies' lineup at the time consisted of Margie Hendrix, Dorothy Jones, and Darlene McCrea. The Raelettes were officially established in 1958. The first lineup consisted of Darlene McCrea, Margie Hendricks, Patricia Lyles, and Gwendolyn Berry. The Raelettes were an integral part of Charles' organization and provided backing vocals on various hits, such as "Night Time Is the Right Time" (1958), "What'd I Say" (1959) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhythm & Blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music ... ith aheavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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