Time was not kind to Ray Charles, but for decades he seemed impervious to its machinations. His best years had come in the mid-’50s and the ’60s, when he virtually invented soul and then refused to be boxed in by any single genre.
His voice, his style, his vision – all were singular, but over the last 35 years of his extraordinary career, the brilliant was too often overwhelmed by the mundane. Charles’ albums, and his performances, became rote, peppered with bright moments but sadly routine.
Aside from 1989’s “I’ll Be Good to You,” a duet with Chaka Khan from an all-star album by lifelong pal Quincy Jones, Charles hadn’t visited the Top 20 since 1967. Yet he remained a powerful concert draw. In May 2003 in Los Angeles, Charles gave his 10,000th concert, but a month later, illness forced him to cancel a tour for the first time in 53 years. He died about a year later, on June 10, at 73.
Now the Concord label has released Charles’ final studio album, “Genius Loves Company,” featuring a dozen duets recorded over a period of a year and completed in March. The Genius’ singing partners include old friends and musical peers (B.B. King, Willie Nelson) as well as admirers (Elton John, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones). Some encounters sparkle; too many don’t. And, sadly, Charles’ inexorably waning condition is often apparent: The emotional power of his voice seems muted; he has a hard time hitting high notes or sustaining long phrases. He plays piano on just three tunes.
There are times when Charles’ magnificent instrument is reduced to a whisper, anticipating the silence to come. But there are also reminders of his indomitable spirit, including the opening encounter with Jones on “Here We Go Again,” which Charles first recorded in 1967. Jones, who grew up listening to Charles’ records, proves an empathetic foil, her warm, lazy vocals meshing convivially with his over a spare but funky arrangement.
The album features several other dips into the Charles catalogue. One of his best known songs, “You Don’t Know Me,” the Eddy Arnold hit Charles reinvented on 1962’s classic “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music,” is appropriately weary but falls strangely flat when shared with Diana Krall, who seems overwhelmed by the company.
On the other hand, “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?” from Charles’ 1984 country collection of the same name, gets a wonderfully bluesy makeover with Raitt. Transforming the song from plaintive monologue to reflective dialogue deepens it, and their voices mesh wonderfully, with Raitt adding taut slide guitar accents to the conversation.
Even better is “Sinner’s Prayer,” the Lowell Fulson blues standard that Charles first addressed in 1954. Almost 50 years later, he revisited it with his pals Preston and venerable bluesman King. This was one of the first studio sessions for this album, and Charles still displays plenty of energy. Willie Nelson, another septuagenarian legend, is aboard for “It Was a Very Good Year,” the haunting meditation about yearning for a simpler past. What could have been eloquent testimony is ruined by Victor Vannacore’s turgid orchestration, though there is obvious poignancy in hearing a very weak Charles proclaim, “The days are short, I’m in the autumn of my years.”
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