Word: gospeleer
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...found his sound along the way. Back in Greenville, his mother had taken him to New Shiloh Baptist Church every Sunday. By the time he was signed by Atlantic Records in 1952, Charles was ready to preach. On I Got a Woman (1955), he used gospel yelps and yowls for secular purpose. On What'd I Say (1959), he employed the call-and-response of church choirs to generate musical momentum and sexual tension: "Uhhhh!" "Ohhhh!" He didn't need words to get across what he meant, but music writers had a word for his music: soul. "I got criticism...
Charles has been called the father of soul, but that title is at once too broad and too limiting. He wasn't the first to combine gospel and the blues--but he did it so winningly, you could be sure he wouldn't be the last. He didn't add sex to church music--he just stopped denying it was there. But he was more than a soul provider. Throughout his career, he explored a variety of genres, including jazz and country, imbuing each with his singular grit and charm. His 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music...
...Blinded at six by glaucoma, schooled in classical, gospel and every form of popular music, he came to Atlantic Records in 1953, when the company?s boss, Ahmet Ertegun, bought Charles? Swingtime Records contract for $2,500. Ray brought with him a pioneering blend of gospel melodies, rhythm-and-blues raunch, a suavely swingin? piano groove ? la Nat Cole and the imposing sound of a big band behind him (though typically he worked with only six sidemen). Oh, and an epochal vocal style that would make him the 20th century?s dominant and longest-lived emissary of soul music...
...What?s the difference between religious and sexual ecstasy, between philosophical and emotional anguish? In the First Church of Ray, not much. Several Charles songs were blues adaptations of gospel airs: from ?Talkin? ?Bout Jesus? to ?Talkin? ?Bout You,? from ?This Little Light of Mine? to ?This Little Girl of Mine,? from ?How Jesus Died? to the Doc Pomus composition ?Lonely Avenue.? The first number was Charles? most popular tune thus far; the second was covered, and nicely revamped as rockabilly, by the Everly Brothers; the third (?My covers, they feel like lead/ And my pillow, it feels like stone...
...Bible, the Koran and the Torah are read alongside manuals on substance abuse, anger management and job training. Volunteer clergy from churches, mosques and other houses of God seem almost as ubiquitous as guards, and prayer is built into the day. Sitting in a chapel pew as a gospel ensemble belts out Lord, I Love to Sing Your Praises, Newton, who transferred to the facility in March, shares what he calls "blessed" news. "I've been praying for my first letter from my daughter, and it came last night," he says. "She knows I'm not going to come back...