At The Movies With The Ray Charles Singers

The Gentle Rain

At The Movies With The Ray Charles Singers
Originated and Produced by Loren Becker and Robert Byrne
Musical Arrangements: Ray Charles
Recording Engineer: C. R. Fine and George Piros
Stereo and Monaural Mastering: George Piros
Art Director: Daniel Pezza
Command ABC Records RS 923 SD
1967

From the inside cover (gatefold): Ray Charles is the kind of movie fan who can't be satisfied by going to his local movie theater or keeping a late-night eye on his television set. He has stocked his house with 16mm prints of films and every weekend the Charles Family has its own movie shows.

"I particularly try to get prints of the old musicals," Ray admitted, "because I like them so much when they first came out. I go back to them now because of nostalgia is an awful liar. These pictures are often really pretty terrible but the songs in them have held up very well.

Ray became a movie addict when he was growing up in Chicago. He managed to see everything that came along, partly because his father went to a lodge meeting every Monday night.

"He'd take me downtown with him when he went to his meeting," Ray recalled, "and I waited for him by going to a movie. That's how I got to see Ethel Waters singing Am I Blue" in On With The Show. And Lawrence Tibbett in Rogue Song. And Rio Rita with John Boles and Wheeler and Woolsey. I saw a picture called Viennese Nights, which had a score by Sigmund Romberg, three times."

Ray's approach to a movie song is, basically, to forget that it was in a movie.

"I approach it as I would any song," he explained. "I don't try to follow the way it was done in the movie because that would simply be imitation. Rex Harrison or Anthony Newley or whoever sings it in the film can do it better in his genre than I could. So I do it my own way."

Ray's way is, as always, to find the musical interpretation that projects the essence of the song as vividly as possible. It may be the distant, lonesome feeling of My Own True Love (Tara's Theme from Gone With The Wind), which he evokes with a whistler and a guitar, or the sibilant sighing of The Gentle Rain, which he produces with glass windbells, or the 1920s atmosphere of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Rosie or the broad sense of openness and freedom that is achieved by a sweeping harp glissando on Born Free.

The arrangements Ray has written for these songs include not only the parts for the Singers but the orchestrations for the band that accompanies the Singers. He made his debut as an orchestral arranger in his last album, A Special Something (Command 914).

"I'm still not as comfortable writing for instruments as I am with voices," he admitted. "I'll probably always feel my way when I'm writing for instruments because I wasn't trained for that and I have to go on instinct and common sense.

Part of the instinct and common sense that Ray brings to his orchestral writing is that, unlike most orchestrators, he is a singer. Orchestral arrangements written to accompany singers often lose sight of – or fail to completely understand – the very specialized problems a singer faces in maintaining a balance with his accompaniment. As a result, the two elements often clash in various ways.

But you'll find no clashed in Ray Charles' orchestration. They were written for singers by a singer and he makes sure that the orchestra stays where he wants it.

From Billboard - November 25, 1967: The Ray Charles Singers swing subtly and enthusiastically through today's popular movie music, featuring "Born Free," "This Is My Song," "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and more of the tunes everyone wants to hear and hum and attach warmly to the memory of his favorite movie.

My Friend The Doctor (From "Doctor Dolittle")
The Gentle Rain (From "The Gentle Rain")
Thoroughly Modern Millie (From "Thoroughly Modern Millie")
All (From "Run For Your Wife")
Mon Amour... Mon Amour (From "Mon Amour, Mon Amour)
Rosie (From "Rosie)
Fortuosity (From "The Happiest Millionaire")
My Own True Love (From "Gone With The Wind")
Where Are The Words (From "Doctor Dolittle")
Born Free (From "Born Free")
If Ever I Would Leave You (From "Camelot")
This Is My Song (From "A Countess From Hong Kong")