by Ramone, Phil
Ray and I met briefly again in 1987 when Ray and Billy Joel recorded “Baby Grand,” but other than seeing each other at some awards show or charity event, our paths hadn’t crossed in years.
Then in June 2003, I produced the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame show and one of the honorees was Van Morrison. When I called Van and told him the news, he said, “I won’t come all the way from Ireland unless you get me the one guy I’ve wanted to meet in my life, and that’s Ray Charles.” I knew that it would be an electrifying collaboration.
It took a bit of juggling to get Ray to New York, and their meeting is one of the most tender things I can ever recall happening at eight thirty in the morning! That night they sang “Crazy Love” on the show, and dazzled the audience.
The success of Ray and Van’s performance prompted a conversation with John Burk and Hal Gaba at Concord Records, who’d been talking to Ray about the possibility of doing an album of duets. That started us rolling toward Genius Loves Company, Ray’s final studio album, and the biggest-selling record of his career.
When John Burk and I met, he told me he’d made a conscientious decision to not make this an “electronic duets” album as I’d done with Sinatra Duets. “I have a definite mind-set for this project,” John explained. “You really can’t get that intangible quality when they’re not singing together in the room. I want to get the guests in the room with Ray, partly because from a fan’s perspective I just want to see what will happen.”
Ray was frail.
Shortly before the project began, he was diagnosed with advanced liver disease, and the treatments he received were draining. Despite his weakness, Ray thrust himself into selecting the songs and musicians he wished to include on the album. We began with a list of potential partners, and whittled it down slowly.
In the beginning, we waited to see who Ray’s people might be able to get, and I offered to troll for other artists. Once we had a list of guest artists and the songs they wished to sing, John Burk went back to Ray and said, “This artist would like to do this song with you.”
It’s been said that “the tree has many branches, and Ray controlled them all.” He was truly all encompassing, and it was imperative that each guest artist be someone who made sense, and represented each of the genres that Ray was noted for. We didn’t want the project to be gimmicky; we were looking for mutual respect.
We began with artists who had command over multiple genres, because Ray’s attitude toward music was “There are no walls or limits,” and the same principle applied to his guests. As Ray said, “I thought it was time to have some of the friends that I love and the artists I admire come into my studio to sing with me live, the way we did in the old days.”
More than a year after first kicking the idea around I found myself sitting in Ray’s studio at 2107 West Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The place hadn’t been touched since being completed in 1964; Peg-Board panels backed with fiberglass lined the walls, and the floor was made of old-fashioned asphalt tile—the kind that produces a funny “slap” echo. It was a nostalgic throwback to the studios of my youth.
It was Ray’s favorite room. As he said, “This studio has given me twice as much pleasure as my house in Baldwin Hills.”
He began building the studio in 1962.
“I liked the location,” Ray explained. “People were trying to tell me to move to fancier areas like Beverly Hills, but why would I want to do that? What was wrong with a working-class black neighborhood? Why not put some money back into the community? Besides, the location was great. [It was] close to downtown, close to Hollywood, and a straight shot to the airport. The land was reasonable and because I’d designed the building myself, I knew it would fit me to a T.”
The studio was especially comfortable for Ray because it was built with his disability in mind: He could manage the staircases and easily navigate through the rooms. He could walk in at any time, sit down at his keyboard, and get the sound he wanted. The main studio is forty-five by twenty-eight by twelve feet, and while the control room was tiny, it suited him. He loved to get in there and mix the records himself.
While I understood the sixties vibe, I knew I needed to modify the sound of the room the moment I walked in.
One of the first things I discovered was that the drum sounds were uncontrollable, so I sent out for a big, old-fashioned beach umbrella, lined it with acoustic foam, and positioned it directly over the drums (like you’d do if you were selling hot dogs at the beach). I also put some small screens around the front of the drum kit to keep leakage to a minimum. These things helped cut down on the reflection, and gave the drum sound better definition.
The room was dotted with the freestanding gobos—movable partitions—that acousticians of the sixties used to isolate one section of the studio from another. They were big and heavy, and they obstructed the musicians’ view of each other. They didn’t do much for me acoustically, so we removed them.
Since Ray’s duet partners would be in the room recording alongside of him, we conformed our setup around Ray’s. I was interested in having Ray play without headphones, so he’d hear the detail of the drums without a lot of reflection off the walls.
The first thing Ray said when I went out to say hello was, “How far is the drummer from me?” “He’s in his usual place,” I explained. “I moved him over a little bit, and put in an umbrella up to cut the reflection from the ceiling. It won’t cut it down from a live point of view, but it’ll keep the drummer out of the guitar and acoustic bass mikes.”
A lot of people misunderstood Ray, and wrongly accused him of being a tyrant. “Impatient” would be a better way to describe Ray Charles. Most gifted people who’ve lost one of their senses (Ray, Stevie Wonder, singer Diane Schurr) move at a frightening pace—they can’t sit around and wait. Part of their frustration is that when they hear a wrong note, they want it fixed immediately. With Ray, his musicians feared that he’d hear a wrong note and chastise them on the bandstand. It was true; he’d admonish someone in front of an audience if they weren’t paying attention—he just wouldn’t tolerate it.
While he was a stickler, Ray could be also quite flexible.
We were doing several songs that had long been associated with him, and at one point during the sessions he said to me, “You know I like to pull these tempos around.” I said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you why you move the tempo around. You don’t always play a song in the same tempo as we’re accustomed to.” “Listen to Count Basie,” he explained. “He’s the king.”
When it came to recording Genius Loves Company, Ray was Mr. Charm.
The sessions weren’t very long. We’d get Ray for an hour or two in the morning—maybe. Afterward, he’d leave for his treatment and physical therapy, have some lunch, and rest for an hour or two. A few times we rehearsed in the morning, and if he was feeling well enough, he’d come back to record in the afternoon.
Ray was decisive about who he chose to sing each song with him.
He was, for example, hesitant to include “You Don’t Know Me” on the album. He wanted to be sure that whoever sang it with him hadn’t had the song shoved down their throat.
“I’d love to have Diana Krall sing it with me,” he said.
Since “You Don’t Know Me” was on Diana’s wish list, she got the honor.
In addition to being a singer, Diana Krall is a fine jazz pianist, and I wasn’t sure whether she’d want to play as well as sing. She did not. That honor fell to Randy Waldman, and I remember that when he played some striking chords, Ray complimented him. “Wow—that’s a great change. That’s really clever.”
When Ray and Diana Krall did their first run-through, he started singing and said, “Why don’t you sing right here, daawling?” Diana began, and in that inimitable voice Ray said, “Oh, that’s so sweet!” When the run-through was over, she started apologizing for the sound of her voice. “I hope you understand—I’m not warmed up yet.”
“Now stop worrying!
That’s not why we’re here,” Ray said, putting her at ease. The sweetness and courage he exuded didn’t allow us to become overly intense. He had a way of shakin’ it that said, “These are the good times.” When Diana walked into the room, it was all about the two of them.
For “Fever” we didn’t want to cut it like the Peggy Lee version, but some of the bass and drum breaks on Peggy’s definitive record are practically part of the arrangement.
“Fever” is a playful song with sexual overtones, and it was well suited to Ray and Natalie Cole. It was the one song where we didn’t have a man and woman singing toward each other in typical love-ballad fashion; it was more like the duets that Ray had done in the sixties with Betty Carter. “Fever” was coy and sassy, but it had humor—and both Ray and Natalie understood the humor of relationships.
I’m not going to tell you that the artists weren’t nervous—we were all nervous. Why wouldn’t we be? I’m used to that anxiety being a part of the process. When we were recording “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind,” I said to Bonnie Raitt, “If you don’t mind, this would be the time to play your guitar.” I knew that Bonnie had loved the song since hearing it on Ray’s Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. She said, “Oh, well I’d rather overdub.”
Bonnie told me that making a record with Ray had been a lifelong dream, and I sensed that she wasn’t comfortable playing in front of him. “Bonnie, he’s not going to criticize you. He’s going to welcome the collaboration.”
Ray was so excited about “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind” that he later said that Bonnie proved something he’d long believed: “Country and blues ain’t just first cousins, they’re blood brothers.”
“Here We Go Again” was a treat. Norah Jones had burst onto the scene a couple of years before, and in a sense, she represented the “new guard.” She had mentioned Ray’s influence in several interviews, and you can hear it in her style.
As John Burk recalls, it was Norah who got a full taste of the real Ray Charles.
“The first time they met, I brought Norah up to Ray’s office, and Ray went to the upright piano to show her how to approach the song,” Burk explains. “He wanted her to do something different, and it was not at all what she was expecting. And she just took to it. It was heartening to see the master and the student, side by side, going into this collaboration on a song that was very different from what she and I both expected.”
For me, the most riveting track on the album is Ray’s duet with Elton John on “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word.” Both Elton and I had heard Ray perform the song at the NAMM tribute to Elton the year before, and we were floored. I wasn’t surprised when Ray said it was the only song he wanted to do with Elton.
I made a cassette from the NAMM show and played it for Ray to remind him of how he’d played it then. He liked the arrangement, but he didn’t like his vocal performance. “Let’s get Elton in and we’ll just sing to the instrumental track [from the show].” “No, no,” I said. “We need fresh legs for this one. We’ll cut it live from start to finish.”
Arranger Victor Vanacore worked with Ray on the chart. When he was finished, Victor made a simple demo at his house so Ray would have an idea of the tempo, feel, and string parts. Ray had already given us tacit approval, which meant there didn’t have to be a lot of discussion about the arrangement.
The instrumental track for “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” was recorded in two parts: a rhythm session and a string overdub session. Because I needed a large space for recording the strings, we went to Henson Studios for the tracking. The sound at Henson has a lot of character. It’s the old A&M Studio on La Brea, and hundreds of well-known records from the 1960s and ’70s were made there.
It took all day to make the instrumental track, and Ray popped in during the afternoon. When I saw him, I never expected that he’d make it to the vocal session the next day. It was apparent that his health had plummeted in two weeks: He was fragile, and I suspected that the vocal date would be canceled.
I knew he was still on the ball when he listened to the playback and said, “That tempo’s not 106.” I told him that I was running the tempo at 105, 106, and 107 beats per minute. “Why are you doing that?” he asked. “I’m running it at all three tempos in case you change your mind about the tempo tomorrow,” I explained. I saw his energy return. “There ain’t gonna be no change of mind. Just let me hear it at 106.”
The tempo was reset.
Ray listened and said, “That’s it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Then he snuck out.
It was sad to see him leave, and I was uncertain that we’d ever see him again. I knew that Ray wanted it to happen, but there was clearly a chance that he wouldn’t make the vocal date. When Ray started listening and getting fussy about the tempo, I thought we might still have a chance. I knew he wasn’t going to let this one go.
The vocal session started at ten.
We were told that it was better to record Ray before noon, because of his physical therapy schedule. If all went well and he was able to rest after noontime, he might be able to come back at three. We were gambling. Would the ten-to one o’clock session give us enough time, or should we schedule the session for three? If we made it three and it didn’t work, we might lose the song entirely. Both Elton and Ray then were in prime shape musically, but Ray wasn’t in prime shape healthwise.
When Ray arrived and they led him into the Record Plant, I gave the signal to begin recording. As I glanced at the console, I noticed that one of the assistants was fiddling with the balance, and I said to engineer Joel Moss, “Let’s put the no-touch rule into effect. Hit the computer so it’s recording, and just let it run. We might find out later that what we’ve got is awful, but it might be perfect.” I wanted to catch everything that transpired between Elton and Ray; I didn’t need anyone missing those magic moments.
Elton had arrived at eight thirty, and when Ray came in they sat and had tea, chatting for a while. It was Elton’s way of preparing; he wanted Ray to walk into the room and feel the love and respect, and that’s exactly what happened.
It was time to record.
I arranged it so that Elton and Ray would be three or four feet away from each other, face-to-face, because I wanted Ray to hear Elton acoustically and not through his headphones. They began their first run-through, discussing who was going to sing which line. “You sing this line…” “No, no, no—I think you should sing it, and I’ll come back in here…”
Elton was being very careful. He looked at the lead sheets I had prepared and gingerly said, “Well, it says here…”
Ray pounced on that immediately. “Who said that?”
“I did, Ray,” I interjected.
“Well how do you know that’s what I want to do?” he asked, somewhat indignantly. I chuckled. “They’re only suggestions—we can do whatever you’d like. Instead of us fishing for ideas, this is what I do. I start by suggesting certain vocal solos on some lines, harmonies on others.”
Everyone in the room got the message right away: Getting the vocals laid down would be a one-shot deal. Ray said, “I’m ready to roll one.” “Okay Ray, here we go.” We rolled it, got a nearly flawless take, and then did one more for insurance. The final record is an edit of those two takes, and the wistful, melancholy tone of the recording speaks for itself.
By the end of the second take, all of us were in tears, but we wouldn’t let Ray catch us crying. It was a bittersweet time in all of our lives—especially mine. After we were done, Ray waved to me, and I walked out to the studio and hugged him. He said, “I’m sorry—I’m really not feeling well today.” They wheeled him down the hall and out into the warmth of the sun.
I never saw Ray again, but he heard the finished mix of the album. We recorded “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” on March 3; Ray died three months later, on June 10, 2004.
Original track sheet for “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” Phil Ramone Collection
Recording with Ray deeply
affected Elton, who took a CD of the entire session home so he could savor the conversation they’d shared. “When people mention Ray Charles, I just smile,” Elton explained. “That grin, that voice, and his music are so joyous. It was amazing to sit in the studio and sing with him. It’s incredibly impressive to be with someone whose music had meant so much to me. He had a prodigious effect on my career, so it was a very emotional experience.”
When Elton heard the first mix of the song, he noticed that one of the Pro Tools editors had eliminated a breath—a little gasp—and he said, “No, no, no. You don’t take those things out. You may want it cleaner for some technical reason, but that’s not what Ray and I want.” When he heard the next mix, you could tell he was moved. Halfway through the song, I saw tears well up in his eyes. He turned to John Burk and me and quietly said, “This is one of the most meaningful moments of my recording career.” For all of us, “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” became the ultimate metaphor, even though Bernie Taupin didn’t write the lyric to reflect the end of someone’s life. No one predicted that it would be the last thing that Ray would ever sing.
Genius Loves Company may have started out as a duets project, but it turned into something with far more intrinsic value. “All of these artists are friends of mine,” Ray said. “It’s been great, man, really great to be able to take these classic songs and get behind them in different ways. It’s taken me back to my roots.”
I’m not sure who first called Ray Charles a genius. It may have been Tom Dowd, or a marketing person at Atlantic Records. It could be argued that whoever chose the title The Genius of Ray Charles for the album of that name in 1958 was a tad overenthusiastic, and that Ray hadn’t quite earned that status yet—at least with the public.