Wednesday, November 24, 2004

"Ray Charles - Genius Loves Company"

Duet albums are notoriously mediocre affairs. Guest stars are called in to sing subpar songs or old standards, performances are flat and lifeless, and you get the feeling the record label is sitting back raking in cash because folks will buy a duet album for a single song that happens to feature their favorite singer mirthlessly crooning a couple of verses.

Posthumous albums are similarly mediocre and rather macabre. They tend to be incomplete, slapdash, and an effort to cash in on a dead man's name and people's sudden hunger for anything with said name attached to it.

A posthumous collection of duets, then, would be something akin to that William Hung CD in terms of taste, refinement, and general necessity.

Or so it would seem. This is not the case with Ray Charles's Genius Loves Company, a set of twelve songs recorded over about a year with various musicians. The aforementioned problems with duet albums and posthumous albums do not apply to this record. It's warm, entertaining, well-performed music by some of the best acts of yesterday and today.

The song and style selections for this set are excellent. Charles has always been an eclectic conosuier of musical genres, crafting amazing tunes in everything from country to rock to R&B to soul to gospel, and everything in between. With his cohorts (and occasionally a full orchestra), Charles manages to work some impressive music out of genres and styles you'd think are pretty tired by now. But that was always his genius--finding new and exciting ways to play with musical styles.

The real joy in this album, though, is hearing Charles and the guest stars interact. You can tell everyone is having a good time, that they love what they're doing, and that they're enjoying the music and each other's company. And the guest list is pretty top-notch--appearances by Norah Jones, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Natalie Cole, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, B.B. King, and Elton John (among others) make this an impressive cast list. Their performances are committed and well-done, and the songs chosen are excellent fits both for Charles and the guests.

The best tunes of the bunch are the songs with Norah Jones ("Here We Go Again," which also features the indomitable Billy Preston on B3 Hammond Organ), James Taylor ("Sweet Potato Pie"), Elton John ("Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word"), and Van Morrison (a live version of "Crazy Love"). Everything on the album is worthwhile, but these are the songs that stand out after the record is done playing.

Ultimately, Genius Loves Company may not be a complete masterpiece, and it may not be as awe-inspiring or as excitingly creative as his peak work, but the record sits nicely next to his body of work, a fitting final tribute to a man who loved what he did.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Ray Charles and Van Morrison, "Crazy Love"

3 comments:

Noise Monkey said...

Oh, come on! I know you get down to all of Tupac's posthumous albums!

Anonymous said...

Tupac isn't dead. He's just pretending because he sells more records that way. Honestly, how much "never before released" material is it possible to make?

Hmm...posthumous recordings. Elliott Smith's "From a Basement..." seemed a bit flat. But them again, Sublime's "Sublime" was an awesome posthumous album.

Chuck Cottrell said...

I can easily believe that Tupac recorded a lot of material that never made it on an album while he was alive because he didn't think it was good enough. God knows how many songs I've written with Clif that we sit there after working it up and go, "y'know, that wasn't really worth the effort to put together."

But in general, I think it's safe to say that posthumous recordings are usually pretty poor affairs. George Harrison's Brainwashed is a definite exception to this rule, and is actually significantly better than most of his solo efforts. Still haven't heard From a Basement..., though I was curious how it was.