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From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend.
Today we continue our RB rockabilly and early rock and roll week with two interviews from our archive.
We'll hear from R&B singer and pianist Charles Brown.
Like a ship out on the sea.
In the 1940s, his sound was inspired by Nat King Cole's trio.
His popularity continued into the early 1960s, when Merry Christmas Baby, and Please Come Home for Christmas topped the charts.
Brown's style influenced many musicians, including...
See the girl with the diamond ring?
She knows how to shake that thing.
Ray Charles, who we'll hear from later in a 1998 interview.
That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
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This is Fresh Air Weekend.
I'm Terry Gross.
Today's show is part of our archive series, R&B, Rockabilly, and Early Rock and Roll.
First we'll listen back to my interview with Charles Brown, who liked to describe himself as a singer of blues ballads.
In the 1940s, he performed with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, whose sound was inspired by Nat Cole's trio.
Brown had nine top ten RB singles between 1946 and 52, either as a solo artist or as a member of the Blazers.
His popularity continued into the early 1960s, when Merry Christmas Baby, and Please Come Home for Christmas topped the charts.
In the 1980s, he made a comeback.
Brown influenced a number of musicians, including Otis Redding, James Brown, Sam Cooke, Billy Eckstein, Bruce Springsteen and Ray Charles, who we'll hear from later in the show.
I spoke with Charles Brown in 1989.
He died 10 years later at the age of 76.
He came to the Fresh Air studio, sat at the piano, and sang some songs.
Charles Brown, a pleasure to have you here.
Let me ask you to open with the song that became your first big hit back in 1946, Driftin' Blues, a song you wrote.
It moved Louis Jordan out of first place in the Cashbox magazine and billboards.
Well, I'm drifting and I'm drifting Like a ship out on the sea.
Drifting and I'm drifting Like a ship out on the sea.
Well, I ain't got nobody In the world to care for me.
If my baby Would only take me back again.
My baby Only take me back again.
No, I'm not good for nothing.
Baby Charles Brown, don't have no friends.
Thank you.
Girl, I'd give you all my money What more can I do?
I'd give you all my money What more can I do?
You're just a good little girl.
You just won't be true.
Bye-bye, baby.
Baby, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye bye baby.
Baby bye bye bye bye.
It's gonna be too late baby.
I'll be too far away.
Bye-bye, bye-bye.
Charles Brown, now that we've heard one of your first big hits, why don't you play something new for us?
This is a tune that I had the pleasure of writing.
It's called Everybody Looking for Somebody to Love Even at My Age.
So we hope you like it.
I'm trying hard to find someone I love to ease my mind.
Seems I have a world of trouble on my mind.
This heavy load burdens me.
I'm gonna lay it down so I can be free.
I must find someone to love for me right now, today.
Every time I read the daily news Headline print gives me the blues.
Why is there so much trouble in the times?
There must be someone.
I must find someone to love for me right now, today.
All my friends seem far away.
There's no family love.
Seems it's gone away.
I read the papers each and every day that hate prevails.
Seems it's here to stay.
I must find someone to love to ease my mind.
That's all i'm thinking of.
I must find Someone to love for me right now, today.
That's a great song.
I like that a lot.
You like that?
Oh, yeah.
Thank you.
I want to mention to our listeners that in the 1940s you spent a lot of time playing with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers.
Johnny Moore was the brother of Oscar Moore, who was the guitarist with the Nat Cole Trio.
Right.
And listening to your early records, it sounds like you were really influenced by Nat Cole when you were starting out in the 40s to record.
Well, you know, we had a trio at the time, and I didn't ever go see Nat Cole.
Really?
And I didn't want to see him until I had established a style of my own.
Because usually things wipe off on you when you hear someone else.
How you sit at the piano, and I never did see him sit at the piano until I was established myself.
Because actually I didn't know what I was going to do, because John Hopkins, who had worked with Nat Cole before, was a valet.
He had told us that, Charles, this is where you should sit at the piano.
So Bobby and I had seen Nat Cole do it, but we were two trios challenging one another at the time.
He was more into pop, and we were into the race record group.
But we were still number one at that time.
We didn't know we were going to be it, but we had the Pittsburgh Courier run a poll and we won the poll.
But Carlos Gastel said for Natco the Blades is not going to win the poll because I'm going to send 1000 in there and I'm going to beat them with the votes.
So he did that.
Well, you've influenced a lot of singers, and one of the many people you've influenced was Mos Allison, who recorded one of the songs that you did, Fool's Paradise.
Yeah, Fool's Paradise.
Sam Cooke did too, and a lot of the other people.
I don't know, John A. Fuller wrote this number.
He was imitating me in San Francisco and Leo Mester and Eddie Mester would go out as talent scouts and to find tunes that would fit me.
And they heard this number being number one in San Francisco because this company that had it wasn't able to send it across the country in distribution.
So he said, Charles, since they're trying to imitate you doing Fool's Paradise, why don't you do it?
Then I did Fool's Paradise, and it was a great hit for me.
Would you play it for us?
Yes, I will.
I often think of the life I lived.
It's a wonder, Charles Brown and Dave.
Drinking and gambling, staying out all night.
Paradise.
My mother told me, father told me too.
Someday my child, fate's going to catch up with you.
Drinking and gambling, Staying out all night, Living in a fool's paradise, Though I've learned my lesson.
Like all fools I've met, I've learned things are in this world.
I remember to my dying day My mother told me.
Father said it right.
Said Charles Brown, you're running your life.
Drinking and gambling, staying out all night.
Living in a poor paradise.
Thank you.
That's it.
That's great.
In the 1950s you used to travel on the rhythm and blues circuit a lot and you had a show and, as a matter of fact, Ray Charles, when he was getting started, performed in your show, opening for you right.
Yeah, Ray Charles was opening for Charles Brown.
And it was during the early 50s, and people thought he was singing so much like me.
They said, was that Charles Brown?
So when I came out, they said, oh no, that's Charles Brown.
But at that time, I had to take Ray Charles around.
In fact, all the artists that were in Shaw Agency.
They were depending on me to carry them through because the promoters wanted to buy Charles Brown.
But in order for Shaw to sell the other acts, he said well, in order to get Charles Brown, you have to take the dominoes.
I took them through.
I took the clovers through.
I took Ray Charles through.
I took Ruth Brown through the Weinberg tour.
And then I had to be a criticizer for Fats Domino when he came into the circuit.
I came here to Philadelphia, and I came here.
He was working at the Baby Grand.
I think it was on Pine Street off abroad.
And I had to sit there and listen to his show.
So when I listened to Pat Domino's show you know people here in Philadelphia they were very funny.
They were great listeners.
And if they enjoyed something, they would give you a wonderful round of applause.
So when Fats finished one number, he would take his time and they would smoke a cigarette.
They would do a lot of talking.
And so when he came up, I said, Pat, look, you lose your audience when you do this.
You've got to have your next number ready.
And if you watch Pat Domino right today, when he gets through with any of his numbers, he goes right to the next number.
So we are very dear friends even today.
Well, I don't feel like we could let you leave today without playing some of Merry Christmas Baby, which is one of the songs you're best known for.
Yeah, they know me for that.
No care where I go, whatever time of year, Terry.
Okay.
¦
Merry Christmas, baby.
You sure did treat me nice.
Merry Christmas baby, You sure did treat me nice.
Came in diamond ring for Christmas.
Now I'm living in paradise.
Well, I'm feeling mighty fine.
Got good music on my stereo.
Feeling mighty fine.
Got good music on my radio.
Well, I want to kiss you, baby.
While you're standing beneath the mistletoe.
That's just a little part of it.
We won't talk about Satan coming down the chimney yet.
Charles Brown recorded in 1989.
He died in 1999.
One of the singers he influenced was Ray Charles, and that's who we'll hear from next, as we continue our archived series of RB rockabilly and early rock and roll.
I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
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Up next in our archive series RB, rockabilly and early rock and roll, we have an interview with Ray Charles.
He was nicknamed the genius, not just for his great singing and piano playing, but also for his producing, arranging and choice of songs.
He drew from and contributed to just about every genre RB gospel soul, rock and roll and country.
Many of his great recordings were of country songs.
In fact, his 1962 album Modern Sounds and Country and Western Music became one of his best-known records and included one of his biggest hits I Can't Stop Loving You.
I spoke with Ray Charles in 1998 after the release of a box set collecting his complete country and western recordings from 1959 to 86.
What was the reaction of your record company when you said around 1962 I want to do a country record?
Did they think, hey, Ray, great idea?
No, not exactly.
Although I understand their concern because at the time I was a pretty good-selling artist over at ABC at the time.
But their concern was that I was a, quote, rhythm and blues artist, unquote.
And they thought if I started doing country music that I would lose a lot of fans.
And, of course, if I lose fans, that means they would lose a lot of business, too.
They did have – I thought their concern was legit.
I mean, I understood what Sam Clark, who was the president at the time, was saying to me.
He said, you know, kid, I'm a little worried about that.
I know it's what you want to do, but we're very worried that you may lose some fans.
And my attitude was, well, Sam, you know –
You probably could be right, but I think that I'll gain more fans than I'll lose if I do it right.
So he said, okay, it's your career.
If you want to try it, go ahead and do it.
Now, early in your career, you went through a period, like many people do early on, of trying to figure out who you were musically.
And before you really figured that out, you sounded very much like you had patterned yourself on Nat Cole and Charles Brown.
That's right.
What did they both mean to you?
Why did you feel so strongly about them?
I just love the way.
Well, Nat Cole, the reason he was so powerful in my life was the fact that I wanted to do exactly what he was doing.
Most people think of Nat Cole as a great singer.
They know his voice.
But I was looking at Nat Cole as a pianist.
People don't realize, but Nat Cole was a hell of a pianist.
He played some of that tasty stuff behind his singing.
And that's what I wanted to do was to be able to, to play little tasty things behind what I was singing.
So I really tried to pattern myself after Nat Cole in the early beginnings of my career.
And Charles Brown, the rhythm and blues singer.
And Charles Brown had that real, I don't know how you would call it.
He always sounded like he was pleading, begging, pleading in his songs or crying.
And I like that.
He always sounded like he was sincere.
Whatever he was saying about it, he was genuine.
He meant it.
That's the way I took Charles Brown.
And I liked it especially when he was singing the blues or something like Merry Christmas Baby, and stuff like that.
I thought we could listen to the very first recording that you made, which is Confession Blues.
Oh, my goodness.
Where did you find that?
Oh, on one of your box sets.
It was easy.
Oh, brother.
Yeah, that's one of the things where I was, you got me down pat.
I guess I was about 17 years old at that time when I made that.
This is 1949.
Let's hear it, and then we'll talk about it.
I want to tell you a story.
Of a boy who was once in love.
I want to tell you a story Of a boy who was once in love And how the girl that I loved loved me, of the happiness I dreamed of.
She called me fine, sweet and mellow, but that didn't mean a thing.
That was Ray Charles' first recording made in 1949.
How did you start to get a sense of who you were as a singer and start to establish your own sound?
Oh, well, right about 19... Well, you know, I started thinking about it in 1951, somewhere in there.
In 1950 or 51.
But I was scared to try it because, you know, I could get a lot of work sounding like Nat Cole.
You know, I could work in nightclubs and I could make a living, you know, with his sound.
You know, I could take the amplifier and tune it and add a little bass and a little bit of treble or something like that to it and sound pretty close, almost just like it, you know.
But then I was, I knew.
I woke up one morning And I started to thinking that I said to myself you know, nobody knows my name.
Everybody said to me, hey, kid, hey, kid, you sound just like Natco.
Hey, kid.
It was always, hey, kid.
Nobody never said Ray.
Never, never, never.
So I started telling myself, you know...
Your mom always told you to be yourself and you got to be yourself if you're going to make it in this business.
I know you love Nat Cole, but you got to stop that.
Well, I want to play Your Cheatin' Heart, which is a real standard of country music.
And I think this is just a really wonderful example of you doing a song your way.
I mean, you might even be using different chords on here than the chords that were written.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Well, that's what makes it become me.
Uh-huh.
And the singing, too, of course.
Well, thank you, ma'am.
But would you say a little bit about what you did with this song to make it your own?
Well, it's like any song that I'm going to do.
I first sing it to myself and see if I can genuinely feel it, you know.
Any song.
I'm that way about all music, all songs I do.
I sit there and maybe sometimes I may sit at the keyboard and fool around with the cards and see if I can find a way.
To sing it where it makes me feel good inside.
And sometimes, you know, I can run into songs that are good songs, but I can't make it do anything for me.
But the song is a great song.
You know, to give you for an example, like I've always loved Stardust, a beautiful song.
But I never could quite get it to sound like I wanted it to for me.
So you know it's really a true feeling, what you feel inside.
You know where you can put yourself into it.
Can you really feel what you're doing?
And that's important to me, to feel what I'm doing.
Okay, now Stardust, you had a huge hit with Hoagy Carmichael's Georgia.
That's right.
How come Stardust doesn't work for you?
Well, I just could never get into it.
I mean, Georgia was something... I used to harm Georgia.
As a matter of fact, my chauffeur you said to me one day you know, Mr Charles, you're always humming that song, George.
You're always humming it all the time.
Why don't you record it?
Well, I had never thought about recording.
I just liked the song, you know.
But it was a chord structure in Georgia.
I mean, especially in the middle part of it, it's got some beautiful changes to it.
I have to give him some skin.
He wrote some beautiful stuff on that song.
Okay well, I had you describe your version of Your Cheatin' Heart, and we haven't played that yet, so let me give that a spin now.
This is the Hank Williams song, Your Cheatin' Heart, performed by Ray Charles.
Here it is.
Your cheese.
Will make you weep.
You'll cry and cry And try, But sleep won't come The whole night through.
Your cheated heart will tell on you when tears come down.
That's Ray Charles, one of his recordings included on his new box set, The Complete Country and Western Recordings 1959 to 1986.
Now it's funny.
You know, when I was young some of your country songs were really big hits.
You know, like Born to Lose and You Don't Know Me and Cryin' Time.
I didn't think of them as country songs.
I thought of them as Ray Charles records.
You're very sweet, honey.
Thank you, Terry.
No, I mean that.
I didn't find out so much later they were country songs.
Well, actually what it is.
I'll tell you something in which I think it would be helpful to the people, to our listeners.
You see, I am not a country singer.
I'm not a jazz singer.
I am not a blues singer.
What I am is I am a singer that can sing country music.
I can sing the blues.
I can sing a love song, but I'm not a specialist.
You know what I mean?
I'm kind of like a baseball player.
You know, I can play a little first base, second base, shortstop, and third base.
I can catch and pitch a little bit for you if you need me to.
I'm sort of like that in the music world as opposed to being, say...
Especially, like you would say, B.B.
King is a blues singer.
There's no question about it.
But I'm not a blues singer.
I'm a singer that can sing the blues.
Now your biography back from, I think, 1978 begins.
Let me say right here and now that I am a country boy and man.
I mean the real backwoods.
Tell us a little bit about where you grew up in the country.
Oh well, I'm from a little small town in well.
Actually I was born in Albany Georgia, but I don't know anything about it because of my My parents moved to Florida when I was about six months old, so you know, I wouldn't remember anything.
So I was raised in a little village, I guess you could call it Greenville, Florida.
It's about 42 miles east.
East of Tallahassee, you know, and it was just a little country town and we just had like a little general store and there was a post office and there was a bus stop, not a bus station, but you know where you sit on the bench and wait for the bus.
And that was about it, and everybody knew everybody.
And, of course, I said the bulk of the people were people that were more or less poor.
So if Miss Jones needed some sugar, she would borrow it from my mom, and if my mom needed some flour, she would borrow it from Miss Williams.
I mean, that's the way we got along.
And what did you hear on the radio then?
Well, basically, in the daytime, you heard country music on the radio.
I mean, that was it.
All day long was country music all over the dial.
And at night, you could hear things like Benny Goodman or Tom and Ozzy or Count Basie.
Because they would have.
In those days they had programs that were live, that was coming from some of the various hotels and nightclubs, and so you could hear various bands at night, and in the daytime you heard strictly the country music.
And of course, being in a black neighborhood, naturally, I heard the blues.
I mean, that's where the blues was.
And of course the religion thing, because you know you went to revival meetings and BYPU and And I went to Sunday school and church on Sunday morning and Sunday evenings.
So, you know, that was the mixture that I grew up in.
Ray Charles, recorded in 1998.
We'll hear more of our conversation after a short break.
I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
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I know a lot of African-American musicians grew up listening to country music on the radio in the South, because that's what was on the radio then.
I'm wondering if you ever felt any more distanced from that music because the performers were white and you were African-American.
Did that matter to you at all?
No, no.
You know, that is the marvelous thing about music.
It is the one thing that... I won't say there was no... segregation or anything.
I'm not saying that.
But it was very, very small.
I mean, if you look around, you saw guys like Benny Goodman.
I mean, there was Lyle Hampton in his band.
You know...
Various white bands, there were black people in the bands.
When I was coming up.
I even worked with a hillbilly group in Florida called the Hillbilly Playboys the Florida Playboys.
And it was a hillbilly group.
They taught me how to yodel.
Could you yodel for us?
Yodeling.
I mean, I'm a lot better than that, but that's the idea.
My voice is too early in the morning, but you get the idea.
You know, I have to say that is not unlike some of the things that you do on your soul records.
Okay.
I truly enjoy the various forms of music, and it keeps me going.
Now, we're recording from your studio.
Do you have to get your phone?
No, no, no, no, no.
Unfortunately, the switchboard kind of goofed and let it ring back here.
You know, they must have about seven, eight lines, and they let the wrong line ring.
Mistake.
Did you think I was nuts when I said that about yodeling sounding not unlike some of the things you do on your solo records?
No, no, no, no, no.
I heard every word of it, girl.
I really do.
I want to play another personal favorite from your country recordings, and this is You Don't Know Me.
Oh, yeah, all right.
Would you tell us about why you chose this song?
Oh, I...
I think, again, the songs that I choose, I start with the lyrics.
What are the lyrics saying to me?
What kind of story are they telling me?
I guess it's like an actor who looks at a script.
Because when you look at lyrics, you've got to tell a story in three minutes.
You don't have two hours like you do when you've got a script.
You got to say what you got to say and make it believable within three minutes.
So I start with the lyrics, you know.
And when I start with the lyrics, I tell myself, now, how many people...
Will this song fit?
I mean, does it sound like most people can relate to it?
And you tell yourself, yeah, mm-hmm.
You give your hand to me, and then you say, I watch you walk away.
You can see or when you hear somebody says, I can't stop loving you, I made up my mind.
Just think of the people who say that.
You know?
And so...
I always start with the lyrics to see does the lyrics carry any real meaning, not just for me, but for the people who are going to be listening to me.
Well, let's hear.
You Don't Know Me, and the song was written by Cindy Walker and Eddie Arnold, and this is Ray Charles' 1962 recording of it, now reissued on his CD box set.
The Complete Country and Western Recordings 1959 to 1986.
You give your hand to me And then you say hello, And I can hardly speak.
My heart is beating so And anyone can tell.
You think you know me well, But you don't know me.
No, you don't know me.
No, you don't know the one Who dreams of you at night And longs to kiss your lips, longs to hold you tight.
Oh, I'm just a friend, that's all I've ever been.
Cause you don't know, For I never knew the art of making love, though my heart aches with love for you.
As we mentioned, you grew up in the country and I think it was at about the age of seven that you lost your sight, and you lost it gradually over a period of a couple of years.
Did you realize what was happening?
Well, as far as losing my sight, I knew that because my mom was very astute.
I mean, I don't know how she managed to come up with the idea.
She did, you know, because she didn't have no psychologist to tell her to do this or tell her to do that.
But she started, she knew I was gonna lose my eyesight.
And so, since she knew I was gonna lose my eyesight, she started showing me how to get around and how to do things without seeing.
Like she would tell me, okay, I'm gonna show you where this chair is, okay?
Now, since you can't see that chair, you're going to have to teach yourself to remember that that chair is there.
Or you've got to teach yourself to remember that that table is there.
Or you've got to teach yourself to remember to turn right when you get to da-da-da-da-da.
And, of course, she started with me when I started to lose my eyesight.
So I gained an awful lot.
And, of course, being that age, it wasn't as much of a shock as say it would be if I was say, losing my sight at the age of 30 or 40 or something where you've seen all your life.
Did you go through a long period of depression afterwards?
No, because by the time I started losing my sight, for sure I was going to a school for the deaf and the blind.
And you know children.
I'm sure you're aware of this, but children can be very brutal.
I mean to each other.
Yeah, no kidding, yeah.
You know what I mean?
And so if you go in there, like when I first went there, I was very homesick.
And I was crying.
You know what you go through.
Because where I went to school was about 130 or 140 miles from where I lived.
So there was a state school for the blind and deaf, as I said.
So I was crying and missing my mom and all that.
And see, kids, instead of sympathizing with you, they would pick on you. and make you feel bad.
So they'll get you out of that kind of groove.
Was it at the boarding school for children who were blind and deaf that you first learned to play music?
Exactly.
Yeah, I started.
I couldn't get into music class the first year I was in school because the class was full.
I mean, I couldn't get into piano class, so I started taking up clarinet.
That's why I can play clarinet and saxophone.
So you played clarinet first?
Oh, yeah.
How did you like the instrument?
I loved it.
Well, I was a great fan of Artie Shaw.
I used to love him.
Everybody was talking about Benny Goodman, but I was an Artie Shaw man.
100%.
And I was very impressed by what he could do with a clarinet.
And naturally, he was my mentor.
I wanted to play.
But obviously, I wanted to be in the piano class.
But since I couldn't, I figured, well, okay, I'll play clarinet.
And I did that.
But the next year, I was able to get into the piano class.
Did you give up clarinet?
No, I studied both.
I kept studying both instruments.
But naturally my heart was with the keyboard, because there's so much you can do when you play piano.
By the time I was 12 years old or 13 years old, I could write a whole arrangement for a 17-piece band.
See, that's the great thing.
If you study piano, it gives you a whole outlook on a lot of different things that has to do with music.
Now, what kind of music were you playing in school?
Oh, well, we were...
They had like little small, cute little songs from Chopin that we would play, or Beethoven or something like that.
Not the symphonies, but the little, small vignettes or whatever you call those little things that you do, you know.
And, of course, when I would write something, I would write some kind of current song that was being played on the radio.
I was just writing an arrangement for the band to play it.
And I'll tell you that's why I don't write a score today, because I started out writing the parts first.
You know most times what arrangers do.
I'm sure you know this.
I'm just saying for the sake of the audience.
Arrangers write a score first.
And then when they write the score, they write the parts.
Well, I wanted to hear the music so bad, I'd write the parts first and write the score afterwards.
It's kind of backward, right?
You know, I interviewed Hank Crawford, who played in your band.
Yes, he was my copyist for a lot of years.
Yeah, and he was your music director for a while.
That's right.
And he said that when you did an arrangement, what you would do would be to call out the notes.
That's right.
He told you, right?
That's right.
Yeah, and I thought that was so strange.
I figured oh, you'd sing the part for the person who is transcribing it, but you called out the notes.
No, no, no.
I would literally tell him what note to write down.
If I tell him the notes, I don't have to worry about whether I'm singing in or out of tune, do I?
Oh, that's a good point.
Right.
All right?
If I tell him the notes, it can't be no mistake.
Uh-huh.
You see what I mean?
Yeah.
I don't want to hum it.
Because I know how to tell him technically.
All he's got to do is write what I tell him.
That way it can't be no mistake, because if I hum it to him, I might not hum it just right, or he may not hear it right or hear what I'm saying.
But if I say it's C-sharp, C-sharp is C-sharp all over the world.
How old were you when you left school and set off on your own?
I was about 15 when my mom died.
So I left school that year.
And what was it like for you to first be on your own like that?
It was tough, but I was lucky.
I mean I was lucky because my mom had a friend that lived in Jacksonville which, as I said, was about 100-some-odd miles from Greenville.
And my mom had always talked to me about her and told me that you know, if I ever needed someone to talk to, that this lady and her were very good friends.
And so...
When my mom passed away, I fooled around for a little while in Greenville, in Tallahassee, and then I decided I would go to Jacksonville because Jacksonville was a city and I wanted to see if I could, you know, get started in music and do something.
So I went there and this lady's name was Lena Mae Thompson and her and her husband, Fred Thompson.
They took me in and treated me just like I was their own kid.
They fed me because I sure didn't have no money, didn't have nothing.
They bought me clothes.
I mean I was lucky, you know, and when I would get a job, maybe once or twice a week or something like that, I'd give them the money, you know, because I mean it wasn't that much money involved in the first place.
And I know they spent way more money than I was able to give them back.
Now, what were the early kinds of places you performed in?
Oh, they were like places one way in and one way out.
You know what I mean?
They were places like dance halls.
And a lot of them would sell beer and they'd sell fish and chicken and stuff like that.
But like I said, it was one way in, one way out.
So the fight broke out.
It was kind of rough.
Those were the days, I have to say, that...
They were good experiences, but I would not like to do them again, you know because, like I said, we were playing dances in those days and, of course, anything could happen.
Is there a record that you think of as being the first recording that you made as yourself?
Really establishing yourself.
Probably I got a woman.
I mean, that was it.
Because when I did that, that seemed to upset a lot of people.
But it was really me.
It upset a lot of people?
Oh, yeah, a lot of people thought that it was too religious and I was bastardizing the church.
Oh, man, I got all kinds of criticism for that.
You mean you were using too much of a sanctified sound for a sexual record?
Yeah, that's right.
But it was really me.
It was 100% me.
And, of course, I just said, well, I have to be criticized because I'm going to sing the way I sing.
And later on, after some other people start doing it, then they start calling it soul music.
It just goes to show you I guess I was a little ahead of my time or something.
Well, I think that's inarguable.
Why don't we hear I Got a Woman?
And this is my guest, Ray Charles.
Well, I got a woman Way over town That's good to meet.
Oh yeah Say, I got a woman way over town good to me.
Oh, yeah.
She give me money when I'm in need.
Yeah, she's a kind of friend indeed.
I got a woman way over town that's good to me, oh yeah.
She says her lovin' early in the mornin' just for me, oh yeah.
That's Ray Charles.
The recording that he said was the first one that really sounded like his own style.
I'd like to end our interview by asking you to choose a favorite, if you have one, from the new Country Music box set.
There's a big selection there.
Yeah, that's true.
And it would be very hard to find what I would call a favorite, but I can tell you one of the songs that I really love.
There's an old Johnny Cash thing that I did on there called Ring of Fire, but I got it from Johnny Cash.
I think it'd be real nice to play that Ring of Fire.
I love that song, and it was written by his wife, June.
Oh, really?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Oh, no kidding.
Oh, well, thank you for telling me that.
So we'll end with Ring of Fire.
Why do you love the song?
Well, just think of the lyrics.
Just think of the lyrics.
Oh, love is a burning thing.
You know, oh, it talks, babe.
It speaks to you.
You know, I really didn't know what you just told me but boy, I have to say I'm very happy to hear that.
Ray Charles, it has been so wonderful to talk with you.
I really thank you so much for your time.
Well Terry, it's been good talking to you, and I just want you to know not only is it good to talk to you, but I'm going to keep on listening to you too.
It is an honor to hear you say that.
Thank you.
I really mean it.
Thank you very much.
You know it makes a fiery ring.
What you do to me God, Because I don't fail.
I fell into your rain of fire.
Oh, the flame went higher.
Ray Charles recorded in 1998.
He died in 2004.
Fresh Air Weekend was produced this week by Teresa Madden and Heidi Saman.
Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.
Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.
This episode's engineer was Adam Staniszewski.
Our managing producer is Sam Brigger.
Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shurock, Anne-Marie Boldenato, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Daya Chaloner, Susan Yakunde, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan.
Our digital media producer is Molly C.V.
Nesper.
Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson.
Our co-host is Tonya Mosley.
I'm Terry Gross.
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