I ‘ve Got A Woman was a post-war R&B landmark. “It was the beginning of the Ray Charles that we came to know,” said the late Jerry Wexler, Charles’ Atlantic Records co-producer. From there, Brother Ray embarked on an unbroken string of hits extending to the end of the decade, when he unexpectedly exited the label. The pianist embraced his own gritty, spiritually enriched voice at Atlantic after years of imitating uber-cool customers Nat “King” Cole and Charles Brown.
A handful of other R&B visionaries dared to mix sanctified and secular during the early-50s, led by Clyde McPhatter, first as lead tenor with the Dominoes and then his own Drifters, as well as The “5” Royales. But it was Brother Ray who spearheaded the emerging hybrid, providing an indelible blueprint for the development of 1960s soul music.
Although African American record buyers heartily endorsed Charles’ pioneering musical stew – his approach appealed to more of an adult demographic than the rock’n’roll of Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino – it engendered little pop crossover interest. Not everyone got behind the idea of Charles blurring idiomatic distinctions. Veteran bluesmen Big Bill Broonzy and Josh White insisted it was sacrilegious, and the pianist got grief from the heavenly side of the tracks as well. “The gospel community was outraged,” added Wexler. “But they soon got over it.”