For the younger generation who only knows Ray as the "old guy in the Pepsi commercials" and those familiar with only his popular and more commercially successful recordings, who want to get to the roots of the real soul of Ray Charles, this compilation is for you.

This 2 disc compilation includes many of Ray's earlier Atlantic Recordings from the 50's and 60's. The first disc consists of his blues recordings while the second reflects his explorations in the roots of jazz. Both jazz and blues purists will delight in Ray's vocal and instrumental piano blues stripped of the overproduction that characterizes so much of the blues and jazz genres today.

Beyond a couple of rough spots on a few of the earlier recordings, this is a collection of beautiful blues and jazz pieces with a fairly comprehensive 34 page liner notebook which includes information about each individual selection. If you are a blues, jazz or Ray Charles fan, this compilation won't disappoint.

Even when he was cranking out hits on Atlantic, Ray Charles was true to his gospel-inflected blues, either vocal or instrumental. This is simple music that clearly comes from the heart and soul. One disc is smokey gin-joint vocal blues and the other is stripped down piano blues. Excellent work. No need for high production values, studio sweetening or pretense. This stuff satisfies. Four stars. (I'd go for five, but the sound is a bit rough in spots.)

40 tracks that fully justify Ray Charles' credentials as an exceptionally gifted blues singer and jazz piano player. But there's more, for hidden in here are several real gems including the rolling work-out of "Early in the Morning", the deeply gospel "I Believe to My Soul" and the ecstatic "What Would I do Without You". Best of all is his rarely found "Worried Life Blues" (originally released as "Someday Baby"): one of the saddest, most soulful renditions of the Big Maceo Merriweather classic you'll ever hear, featuring wonderfully sparse singing and some incredibly understated and controlled piano-playing that quite simply sum-up "the blues". Brilliant, and almost worth the price of the album on its own!

Ray Charles deserves his own genre. There is something unmistakable about what Ray Charles brought to music, I'd venture to say it was his very own Soul! If you're searching for an example of this, it's all here in this collection. Your spine will tingle and your skin will crawl. This is beyond just good! Stunning and then some!

The only way to find out about an artist is to dive into as much material as possible and find what you like.His country and western stuff was good but this is the disc that I go for every time.Ray is at his soulful best right here playing in small combos and a few cuts with him by himself on piano,every song is a gem and even people who consider themselves casual fans will gain a new appreciation for this incredible mans talent.
He basically wrote the book on modern soul and r&b and these cuts prove it.If the greatest hits are where you started then you have arrived at one of the most important stops on the trip.
Great music from a great talent and it does not get any better than this.