Album Review: Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vols. 1 & 2 [Reissue] by Ray Charles

When Ray Charles made Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music in 1962, he was operating from a position of power. Two years into his contract with ABC-Paramount, he had already become a fixture in the Top Ten with both his singles and his albums, winning a Grammy for his 1960 single "Georgia on My Mind." Charles had freedom to do whatever he wanted, and he chose to record interpretations of 12 country songs, drawing almost equally from recent hits and older standards. The sly virtuosity within Charles' approach was to treat these tunes as a a songbook to be reinvented, not as songs that were tied to their rural roots.

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