Thursday, June 10, 2004

Ray Charles, RIP

I first heard Ray Charles in 1959. A guy in my dorm had transferred from Marquette University in Milwaukee. He had a stack of Atlantic Records albums by Ray Charles. For the first time, I heard "I've Got a Woman," "A Fool for You," "Drown in My Own Tears" and "Hallelujah I Love Her So." My favorite number that hit the pop charts in the summer of 1960 was "I'm Busted."



My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I'm busted
Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I'm busted
I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay
A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day
The county's gonna haul my belongings away cause I'm busted.

I went to my brother to ask for a loan cause I was busted
I hate to beg like a dog without his bone, but I'm busted
My brother said there ain't a thing I can do,
My wife and my kids are all down with the flu,
And I was just thinking about calling on you 'cause I'm busted.

Well, I am no thief, but a man can go wrong when he's busted
The food that we canned last summer is gone and I'm busted
The fields are all bare and the cotton won't grow,
Me and my family got to pack up and go,
But I'll make a living, just where I don't know cause I'm busted.

I'm broke, no bread, I mean like nothing.


There will never be another Ray Charles. If this is (fair & balanced) soul, so be it.



[x NYTimes]
Ray Charles, Who Reshaped American Music, Dies at 73
By JON PARELES

Ray Charles, one of America's greatest singers and a musician who brought the essence of soul to country, jazz, rock, standards and every other style of music he touched, died today. He was 73.

A spokesman for Mr. Charles, Jerry Digney, told Reuters that Mr. Charles had died at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., of complications from liver disease.

Mr. Charles reshaped American music for half a century as a singer, pianist, songwriter, bandleader and producer. He was a remarkable pianist, at home with splashy barrelhouse playing and precisely understated swing. But his playing was inevitably overshadowed by his voice, a forthright baritone steeped in the blues, strong and impure and gloriously unpredictable.

Mr. Charles could belt like a blues shouter and croon like a pop singer, and he used the flaws and breaks in his voice to illuminate emotional paradoxes. Even in his early years, he sounded like a voice of experience, someone who had seen all the hopes and follies of humanity.

Leaping into falsetto, stretching a word and then breaking it off with a laugh or a sob, slipping into an intimate whisper and then letting loose a whoop, Mr. Charles could sound suave or raw, brash or hesitant, joyful or desolate, insouciant or tearful, earthy or devout. He projected the primal exuberance of a field holler and the sophistication of a be-bopper; he could conjure exaltation, sorrow and determination within a single phrase.

In the 1950's, Mr. Charles became an architect of soul music by bringing the fervor and dynamics of gospel to secular subjects. But he soon broke through any categories. By singing any song he prized — from "Hallelujah I Love Her So" to "I Can't Stop Lovin' You" to "Georgia on My Mind" to "America the Beautiful" — Mr. Charles claimed all of American music as his birthright. He made more than 60 albums, and his influence echoes through generations of rock and soul singers.

Ray Charles Robinson was born on Sept. 23, 1930, in the small town of Albany, Ga., and grew up in Greenville, Fla. When he was 5 years old, he began losing his sight from an unknown ailment that may have been glaucoma. He became completely blind at the age of 6. But he began to learn piano, at first from a local boogie-woogie pianist, Wylie Pitman; he also soaked up gospel music at the Shiloh Baptist Church and rural blues from musicians who included Tampa Red.

He was sent to the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and the Blind from 1937 to 1945. There, he learned to repair radios and automobiles, and he started formal piano lessons. He learned to write music in Braille and played Chopin and Art Tatum; he also learned to play clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet and organ. On the radio, he listened to swing bands, country-and-western singers and gospel quartets. "My ears were sponges, soaked it all up," he told David Ritz, who collaborated on his 1978 autobiography, "Brother Ray."

He left school at 15, after the death of his mother, and went to Jacksonville to earn a living as a musician. He played where he could as a sideman or a solo act, taking jobs all over the state and calling himself Ray Charles to distinguish himself from the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. He modeled himself on two urbane pianists and singers, Charles Brown and Nat (King) Cole, carefully copying their hits and imitating their inflections. After three years, he decided to put Florida far behind him and moved to Seattle. There, he formed the McSon Trio, named after its guitarist, Gosady McGee, and the "son" from Robinson. He also started an addiction to heroin that lasted for 17 years.

Mr. Charles made his first single, "Confession Blues," in Seattle in 1949, credited to the Maxin (a different spelling of McSon) Trio. His second single, "Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand" by the Ray Charles Trio, was recorded in Los Angeles in 1950 with musicians who had played with Nat Cole. The singles were hits on the "race records" (later rhythm-and-blues) charts, and Mr. Charles moved to Los Angeles.

He joined the band led by the blues guitarist Lowell Fulson, and became its musical director. After two years of touring the United States, he left to resume his own career.

In 1953, he signed with Atlantic Records; he also moved to New Orleans to work with Guitar Slim as pianist and arranger. Guitar Slim's "Things That I Used to Do," featuring Mr. Charles on piano, became a million-selling single in 1954, and it convinced Mr. Charles to leave his imitative style behind and free his own voice.

He moved to Dallas and formed a band featuring the Texas saxophonist David (Fathead) Newman. And after working with studio bands on his first Atlantic singles, he convinced the label to let him record with his touring band, playing arrangements that had been road-tested on the rhythm-and-blues circuit.

"I've Got a Woman," recorded in a radio-station studio in Atlanta with his seven-piece band, became Mr. Charles's first national hit in 1955, starting a string of bluesy, gospel-charged hits, among them "A Fool for You," "Drown in My Own Tears" and "Hallelujah I Love Her So."

In the mid-1950's, he expanded his band to include the Raelettes, female backup singers who provided responses like a gospel choir, and they became a permanent part of his music. It was the beginning of the rock and roll era, but Mr. Charles didn't gear his songs to teen-agers; they had the adult concerns of the blues. Yet his songs began showing up on the pop charts as well as the rhythm-and-blues charts.

At the same time, Mr. Charles made clear his allegiance to jazz, recording an album with Milt Jackson of the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1958 and appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival.

In 1959, a late-night jam session turned into "What'd I Say." It was a blues with an electric-piano riff, a quasi-Latin beat and cheerful come-ons that gave way to wordless, call-and-response moans. Although some radio stations banned it, it became a Top 10 pop hit and sold a million copies. But his next album, "The Genius of Ray Charles," took a different tack: half of it was recorded with a lush string orchestra, half with a big band. He also recorded his first country song, a version of Hank Snow's "I'm Movin' On."

Mr. Charles left Atlantic for ABC-Paramount Records in 1959 when it offered him higher royalties and ownership of his master recordings. He began to reach a larger pop public with songs that included two No. 1 hits, his version of "Georgia on My Mind" in 1960 (which brought him his first of a dozen Grammy awards) and "Hit the Road Jack" in 1961. With increasing royalties and touring fees, Mr. Charles expanded his group to become a big band.

By the early 1960's, Mr. Charles had virtually given up writing his own material to follow his eclectic impulses as an interpreter. He made an instrumental jazz album, "Genius + Soul = Jazz," playing Hammond organ with a big band featuring Count Basie sidemen. On the duet album he made in 1961 with the jazz singer Betty Carter, two highly idiosyncratic voices sounded utterly compatible. And in 1962, he released the album "Modern Sounds in Country and Western," remaking country songs as big-band ballads. His version of "I Can't Stop Lovin' You" reached No. 1 and sold a million copies.

After recording "Modern Sounds in Country and Western, Vol. 2," Mr. Charles settled into an office building and studio in Los Angeles that remained his headquarters. He returned to rhythm-and-blues for his other major 1960's hits: "Busted" in 1963 and "Let's Go Get Stoned" in 1966. But he was also recording standards, country songs and show tunes.

In 1965, Mr. Charles was arrested for possession of heroin. He spent time in a California sanitarium to break his addiction and stopped performing for a year, the only break during his long career. When he emerged, he resumed his old schedule: touring for up to 10 months with the big band and releasing an album or two every year. He started his own label, Tangerine, which released albums through ABC and on its own. In the mid-1970's, he started another label, Crossover, which released albums through Atlantic Records.

His presence on the pop charts had dwindled, but he was still widely respected. In 1971, he joined Aretha Franklin for the concert she recorded as "Live at Fillmore West." His version of Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City" won a Grammy award in 1975. He wrote an autobiography, "Brother Ray," that became a best-seller in 1978. In 1979, his version of "Georgia on My Mind" was named as Georgia's official state song, and in 1980, he was featured in the movie "The Blues Brothers."

During the 1980's, Mr. Charles returned to the charts, this time in the country category. The boundary-crossing Southern music he had envisioned with "Modern Sounds in Country and Western" had been not just accepted, but treated as natural. Mr. Charles signed to CBS Records's Nashville division and made "Friendship," an album of duets with 10 country stars, including songs with George Jones and Willie Nelson that reached the country Top 10 in 1983. He sang "America the Beautiful" at the Republican Convention in 1984.

In 1986, Mr. Charles was one of the first musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He received a Grammy award for Lifetime Achievement in 1987, and in 1989 he appeared on Quincy Jones's album "Back on the Block," winning another Grammy for a vocal duet with Chaka Khan on "I'll Be Good to You." In 1990, he turned up in television ads for Diet Pepsi, singing, "You got the right one, baby, uh-huh!"

Mr. Charles's private life was complicated; he was married twice, and had nine children with seven women. But he had become an American pop icon. And year in and year out, Mr. Charles continued to move audiences with his concerts. He would take a set of familiar songs and find within them moments of tenderness and bitterness, humor and resignation.

In songs he had written and songs that he had indelibly claimed, Mr. Charles summed up American music from big-band swing to country, Tin Pan Alley to gospel. With his profound knowledge of musical styles and matters of the heart, Mr. Charles composed, arranged and improvised his way toward an American culture that embraced soul and acknowledged no barriers.

Copyright © 2004 The New York Times Company

He Ain't Kinky, He's Our Governor!

The Kinkster is my kind of candidate. He's not Pro-Life, he's not Pro-Choice, he's Pro-Football. Texas deserves the Kinkster. After one non-descript loser after another in the Governor's Mansion, let's have a distinctive governor for a change! Why the hell not? I can't wait for the Texas Peace Corps! If this is (fair & balanced) punditry, so be it.



[x Los Angeles Times]
What Some Texans Want Is Kinky
By Richard (Kinky) Friedman

Why am I running for governor of Texas in 2006? Why the hell not? I already have several good campaign slogans, starting with "How hard could it be?"

Compared with the daunting financial crunch that Arnold Schwarzenegger inherited when he became governor of California, being governor of Texas is a notoriously easy gig. It's rather like being the judge of a giant chili cook-off.

Consider that in the past a series of wealthy Texas oilmen have ascended to the office, some of them rarely bothering to leave their ranches to go to Austin unless there was a football game. And it's clear that not much was expected of our first female governor, Ma Ferguson, who, regarding bilingual studies, once said: "If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for Texas."

Here's another reason I'm running: Texas has a tradition of singing governors. Pappy O'Daniel's successful race took place in the 1940s. He had a band called the Light Crust Doughboys. I, of course, had a band called the Texas Jewboys. His slogan was "Pass the biscuits, Pappy." One of my own most popular, often-requested songs is "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven (And Your Buns in the Bed)." The parallels are almost uncanny.

Our current governor, Rick Perry, is very proud of his hair. I've got a better head of hair than him, but it's not in a place I can show you because I wear a cowboy hat most of the time. Actually, the only thing cowboys and Jews have in common is that we both like to wear our hats indoors. In the rare instances in which I take off my hat, I have what I often like to refer to as the Lyle Lovett Starter Kit.

Part of the charm of my quixotic campaign is that it may be taken as a joke by some, an article of faith by others. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the other guy's got the experience — that's why I'm running.

I have a new product coming on the market this summer. My Palestinian hairdresser, Farouk Shami, and I are importing olive oil from the Holy Land. One hundred percent of the profits of Farouk & Friedman Olive Oil will go to Israeli and Palestinian children. We aim to show Arafat and Sharon how it's done. When I'm governor, Farouk will be my ambassador to Israel.

Willie Nelson, the hillbilly Dalai Lama, also will play a seminal role in my plans. In a Friedman administration, Willie confided to me, he would like to be head of the Texas Rangers. If that's not possible, he'd like to be head of the DEA.

Willie and I, of course, do not always agree on everything. More than a year ago, just before the invasion of Iraq, we were discussing the subject on his bus. I was very much for the war. He was very much against it. Finally, I tried to reason with him. "Look, Willie," I said, "the guy's a tyrannical bully and we've got to take him out." "No," Willie said. "He's our president and we've got to stand by him."

Even though the governor of Texas does not do much heavy lifting, this does not mean that he can't do some spiritual lifting. I have a plan to start a Texas Peace Corps, and that is not an oxymoron. I want to fight the wussification of Texas. We didn't get to be the Lone Star State by being politically correct.

I'm not anti-death penalty but I am anti-the-wrong-guy-getting-executed. Max Soffar has been on death row for 23 years, brought to trial solely on the basis of a long-ago recanted confession, and represented by the infamous Joe Cannon, a state-appointed attorney known to have slept through some of his clients' capital murder cases.

And I don't merely want to save innocent people. I also want to save innocent animals. When I'm governor, Texas will become a no-kill state. I'll also outlaw the declawing of cats. For five years, I've been involved with Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch (utopia rescue.com), a never-kill sanctuary for stray and abused animals. You can learn a lot about life by working with stray and abused animals. I'd probably be a Buddhist today if it weren't for Richard Gere.

I aspire to inspire before I expire — to remind people that JFK is not an airport, RFK is not a football stadium and Martin Luther King Jr. is not a street. In 2 1/2 years you may see me in the back of a long, black limousine, which will mean that I'm either governor or I've been bugled to Jesus, the distinction often not being readily discernible.

If I am elected, I already know the first thing I'll do: Demand a recount! But can I really win? Read my lips: I don't know.

Richard (Kinky) Friedman is an author, musician and columnist for Texas Monthly.

Copyright © 2004 Los Angeles Times


The Cobra Double-Strikes!

Don Imus (the shock jock on NYC's WFAN) has an ultimate put-down for people who irk him: He/She/They is/are phony. The Reagans and the Bushes (all of them) are a bunch of phonies. Maureen Dowd reveals the phoniness of both the Reagans and the Bushes in the aftermath of Dutch's death. If this is (fair & balanced) rejection of hypocrisy, so be it.



Epitaph and Epigone
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Sometimes I feel as if I'm watching a nation mourn. And sometimes I feel as if I'm watching a paternity suit.

At every opportunity, as the extraordinary procession solemnly wended its way from California to the Capitol, W. was peeping out from behind the majestic Reagan mantle, trying to claim the Gipper as his true political father.

Finally, there's a flag-draped coffin and military funeral that President Bush wants to be associated with, and wants us to see. (It's amazing they could find enough soldiers, given Rummy's depletion of the military.)

"His heart belongs to Reagan," Ken Duberstein declared about Mr. Bush on CNN, in a riff on the old Cole Porter ditty "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." W. "is that bold-stroked primary-colors leader that—— somebody who has this big vision and wants to stick to it." (Well, the two presidents do share a middle initial.)

The Bush-Cheney re-election Web site was totally given over to a Reagan tribute, with selected speeches, including "Empire of Ideals" — too bad we didn't just stick to ideals — and "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc," President Reagan's 1984 Normandy speech, played so often last Sunday that it eclipsed W. at Normandy.

Bush hawks were visibly relieved to be on TV answering questions that had nothing to do with prison torture, phantom W.M.D. or our new C.I.A.-operative-turned-prime-minister in Iraq. What a glorious respite to extol a strong, popular, visionary Republican president who spurred democracy in a big backward chunk of the world — even if it isn't W., and it's the Soviet bloc and not the Middle East.

Showing they haven't lost their taste for hype, some Bushies revved up the theme that Son of Bush was really Son of Reagan.

Never mind that back in 1989, the deferential Bush père couldn't wait to escape the Gipper's Brobdingnagian shadow. Though he liked Ronald Reagan, 41 had a secret disdain for 40's White House. He was dismayed by the way media wizards treated the president like a prop and the Oval Office like an M.G.M. set. He and Barbara, who divide the world into peers and "the help," also hated being treated like "the help" by the Reagans, who did not have them upstairs at the residence for dinner and who did not always thank them for presents.

The Reagans returned the favor. "Kinder and gentler than who?" Nancy sniffed after 41's convention acceptance speech. (As for Barbara, Nancy had warned her off wearing "Nancy Reagan red.")

For the neocons, ideology is thicker than blood. Bush père is the weakling who broke his tax pledge and let Saddam stay in power. Just as Ronnie was a poor kid from Dixon, Ill., who reinvented himself as a brush-clearing cowboy of grand plans and simple tastes, so W. was a rich kid from Yale and Harvard and a blue-blooded political dynasty who reinvented himself as a brush-clearing cowboy of grand plans and simple tastes.

While W. talks the optimistic talk, he doesn't walk the walk; the Bush crew conducted its Iraq adventurism with a noir and bullying tone.

But Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz tried to merge Junior and Gipper. Mr. Perle said on CNN that Mr. Reagan wouldn't have been "pushed out of Iraq before completing the mission," and Wolfie agreed that 9/11 had "changed everything. I think it would have changed it for Ronald Reagan. We've gone from just being concerned with the freedom of other people in the Middle East to the threat to our own country from totalitarian regimes that support terrorism."

These maunderings forget that Mr. Reagan sometimes avoided risk, compromised and retreated; when 241 marines were blown up in Beirut, he rejected advisers' pleas and pulled out. Mr. Wolfowitz has told friends this was Mr. Reagan's low point.

As Alexander Haig told Pat Robertson yesterday, Mr. Reagan won the cold war without a shot. He championed freedom but didn't impose it at the point of a gun barrel. He had "Peace Through Strength"; Mr. Bush chose Pre-emption Without Powell.

The Bush crowd's attempt to wrap themselves in Reagan could go only so far. While Laura Bush and Donald Rumsfeld shared memories of fathers who had suffered from Alzheimer's, Mrs. Bush said she could not support Mrs. Reagan's plea to remove the absurd and suffocating restrictions on stem cell research.

Whether he was right or wrong, Ronald Reagan was exhilarating. Whether he is right or wrong, George W. Bush is a bummer.

Copyright © 2004 The New York Times Company