Although it may have shocked some people at the time, Ray Charles’ fascination with country and western music was anything but an overnight development. As a child in Florida, he’d listened to the Grand Ole Opry’s radio broadcasts through the Southern skies. Thus his 1962 gold-certified album Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music and its encore Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music, Volume 2 represented a lifelong dream - and may have transformed country music along with it.
The two albums, which featured the hits “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Take These Chains From My Heart” and “You Don’t Know Me,” will be reissued together in an expanded reissue titled Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music, Volumes 1 & 2 by Concord Records on June 2, 2009. New liner notes by musicologist Bill Dahl are included alongside original notes by Rick Ward and Charles’ longtime recording supervisor Sid Feller.
The reissue release is part of Concord’s ambitious Ray Charles reissue program that launched this year. A 17-time Grammy winner, Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee and #10 in Rolling Stone’s Greatest Artists of All Time, Charles has sold more than 10 million CDs in the SoundScan era alone.
“Since joining ABC’s roster in late 1959 after permanently altering the rhythm & blues landscape that sired soul, Charles had been contemplating an LP of country chestnuts for years,” Dahl writes. “So to him it wasn’t a radical concept. What was earth shattering was the way he redefined each song. When Ray unleashed the roaring horn section from his recently formed big band, those country evergreens swung like never before.”
In preparation for the album, Charles asked Feller to bring him the biggest country and western hits from the preceding 20 years. According to Ward, “Completely confused and wondering what possible use Ray could make of such material, Sid began collecting songs. The more he thought about Ray’s idea, the more excited Sid became. And by the time the sessions rolled around, he was nearly the most enthusiastic person on the studio.”
Initially skeptical at first themselves, ABC Records gave Charles artistic freedom and was pleased when Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music became the label’s first million-selling album. A lot of this was due to the success of its first single, “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” Never intended to be a single, the Don Gibson-penned track was buried deep in the album sequence.
Yet when actor Tab Hunter covered the song, Feller quickly edited Charles’ rendition to single length and got it into the marketplace in enough time to bury the Hunter version. It topped the pop and R&B hit parades and won a Grammy for Best R&B Recording. “You Don’t Know Me” also proved a massive R&B and pop seller.
A few months later, Ray and his team convened at Capitol Studios in New York to plan Volume 2, Ray mining another dozen country standards. Within the month, the album was at retail and proceeded to reach #2 on the pop album chart. Hank Williams’ “Take These Chains From My Heart,” which kicked off the “ballad side” of Volume 2, became another huge Charles hit in mid-1963.
Having made countless new country converts by giving these 24 songs a soul-steeped urban dimension, Charles continued to dip into the country and western songbook. He covered Johnny Cash’s hit “Busted” to Grammy-winning acclaim in 1963, and his remakes of Buck Owens’ “Cryin’ Time” and “Together Again” hit during the mid-’60s. “Then again,” Dahl writes, “Ray’s unique vocal interpretations inevitably made any song from any genre entirely his own.”
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Green Day has just premiered the video for their new single, “21 Guns,” exclusively on MySpace Music. The video was helmed by noted director Marc Webb, who has lensed clips for such artists as My Chemical Romance, Weezer, and All-American Rejects, and is making his feature film directorial debut in July with (500) Days of Summer.
“21 Guns” is the second single from the band’s latest album 21st Century Breakdown, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, as well as on the Rock, Active Rock, and Alternative charts, fueled by the Alternative radio No. 1 single “Know Your Enemy.” 21st Century Breakdown, which Rolling Stone has called “a rock opera in which the rock always comes first,” also topped the charts in 24 countries including the UK, Canada, and Japan.
Over the past month, Green Day has continued to work with MySpace Music for the promotion of 21st Century Breakdown. During the week of the album’s release, they played an exclusive concert in New York City which was filmed for the site’s premiere online concert program, The List. The performance can now be seen on The List’s official MySpace profile.
In other Green Day news, the band has been nominated for three 2009 Teen Choice Awards, which are voted on by teens aged 13 to 19 and honor the year’s biggest achievements in music, movies, television, and fashion. Green Day has been nominated in the following categories — Choice Music: Rock Group, Choice Music: Album, for 21st Century Breakdown, and Choice Music: Rock Track for “Know Your Enemy.”
This year’s show will take place at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, August 9th, and air the next day, Monday, August 10th, on FOX at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Fans can vote for Green Day at http://www.teenchoiceawards.com/.
Green Day, which is singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool, are preparing to launch their first proper tour of the United States and Canada in more than three years. The tour runs from July 3rd through August 25th. Please visit http://www.greenday.com/ for more details.
Internationally-renowned singer and actress Vanessa Williams will release her thirteenth album and debut for Concord Records entitled THE REAL THING, on June 2nd, 2009. The collection marks a return to her love for the rhythms of jazz and Latin music, a key part of her musical roots. In addition, THE REAL THING delves into the sophisticated pop and R&B that have been the hallmark of her dynamic musical career.
THE REAL THING is a passionate song cycle about relationships, and Williams hand-picked each song on the record as it relates to a phase of the modern-day love affair seen from a woman’s perspective. From the two new songs penned for the CD by Babyface (“Loving You” and “Just Friends”) to “Hello Like Before” by Bill Withers (Williams’ late father’s favorite artist) to Stevie Wonder’s “The Real Thing” to Bebel Gilberto’s “Close To You,” THE REAL THING taps into the wide breadth of Williams’ musicality and artistry.
“After playing a power-hungry character like Wilhelmina Slater on “Ugly Betty” on a soundstage for three seasons, it was a pleasure to step back into the recording studio and be myself behind the microphone,” stated Ms. Williams. “The familiarity and comfort of making music is always a joy to come home to. It was especially a treat to sing Phil Galdston’s “I Fell In.” Our biggest hit together was “Save the Best for Last.”
“Vanessa Williams in an artist of rare talent, depth and creativity,” states Concord Music Group executive vice-president of A&R, John Burk. “In this album she explores her musical range and influences perhaps more so than ever before. We couldn’t be more proud to have her as a member of the Concord family.”
With a career spanning over 20 years, Williams is the consummate performer. From her chart-topping pop star music career, to her Emmy-nominated role on “Ugly Betty” and her upcoming co-starring performance in the feature film “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” Vanessa Williams remains one of the industry’s most, versatile and accomplished artists. She has appeared in numerous films including “Soul Food,” “Eraser,” “The Pick-Up Artist” and “Shaft,” and has numerous television credits to her name as well as critically-acclaimed performances on Broadway in “Kiss Of The Spider Woman” and “Into The Woods,” which garnered her a Tony nomination.
Since the release of her first studio album, 1988’s The Right Stuff, Williams has garnered a total of 16 Grammy nominations, released seven albums of original material, as well as four compilations and two holiday-themed albums, selling millions of albums world-wide. She was nominated for yet another Grammy for her hit single, “Colors of the Wind,” from Disney’s “Pocahontas,” which went on to win an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Grammy for “Best Song In A Motion Picture.” THE REAL THING is her first studio album since 2005’s Everlasting Love.
Vanessa Williams’ charitable contributions are many and varied, embracing and supporting such issues as education, homelessness, abuse, women’s issues and health concerns, AIDS and anything having to do with children. She is also well-known for her outspoken support of gay rights, having won the Human Rights Campaign “Ally for Equality” award in 2008. She is on the Board of Directors of Special Olympics, as well as the Board or Advisors for the Westchester Children’s Museum and supports numerous other charitable and humanitarian organizations.
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