Ray Charles - The Right Time (1980 Japanese Atlantic Mono Compilation LP)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: None

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Ray Charles - The Right Time | Vinyl LP - 1980 Japanese Atlantic Mono Compilation (P-6184A, Warner-Pioneer Corporation, R&B Forever 2000 Series)

This compilation pulls from the period when Ray Charles was effectively building soul music in real time. The Atlantic years gave him the studio freedom to take what he'd absorbed in Florida churches and Seattle clubs and run it through the New York rhythm sections Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler put in front of him. "Lonely Avenue" (Doc Pomus, 1956) shows him preaching the blues over a stomping triplet pattern. "Swanee River Rock" rewrites Stephen Foster as a backbeat rave-up. "I'm Movin' On" stalks a Hank Snow country hit and drags it into rhythm and blues two years before the Modern Sounds project would make that crossover a national event. The headline track, recorded December 1958 with the Raelettes, is the bridge: Margie Hendrix tearing the roof off while Ray works the piano like a Pentecostal organ.

The R&B Forever 2000 series was Warner-Pioneer's early-1980s programme of mid-priced Japanese reissues of the Atlantic and Stax catalogue. By the time this came out in 1980, the original Atlantic singles and album masters were already a quarter-century old, and Japanese audiences had developed a clear taste for them. Mono is the right call for material recorded between 1952 and 1959, when these were all single-microphone or two-track sessions long before stereo became the default. This is the 1980 Japanese Atlantic mono compilation pressing, manufactured by Warner-Pioneer Corporation as part of the R&B Forever 2000 series.