MESS AROUND

The ‘utility man’ who had much to do with the creation of Soul Music, Nigel Williamson honours “the only true genius in show business”

I never wanted to be famous,” Ray Charles once said. “I only wanted to be great.” In the event, of course, he achieved both – and plenty more – as a towering figure in the history of popular music whose influence spanned genres and generations. As a musician he defied categorisation, fluent in all three of the building blocks of black American music – jazz, blues and gospel. He modestly called himself: “a good utility man” but by welding them into a new, coherent whole he can be credited with creating what came to be known as soul music. Frank Sinatra famously called Charles “the only true genius in show business” and the ‘g’ word featured in more than half a dozen of his album titles, although he was uncomfortable with…

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Hi-Fi Choice (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2024

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