#957 Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music

Released near the end of Ray Charles' late-50's-early-60's golden age, this set of longing ballads stretches deep into the wee hours of the night like a Sinatra album, each song bathed in a signature combination of sweet strings and swooning, high-harmony backing vocals. There's the occasional stomper, but mostly everything's slow and low, about love, loss, or both, with little of what you might recognize as country or western music by any modern standard: less jangle and strum, more cowboy calling into the deep starlight that no earthly souls can hear 3/5