Did Ray Charles invent soul?
Question: Did Ray Charles invent soul?
Answer: In a broad sense, Ray Charles did invent soul, if you accept the standard definition that "soul" music is where gospel music and blues music meet. (This is not the same thing as rhythm and blues, exactly, which mixes blues with elements of swing, pop, and jazz.) In 1954, Charles recorded "I Got A Woman," a secular reworking of a church standard entitled "My Jesus Is All the World to Me." It was an immediate smash hit on what would be later called the "R&B" charts, and while other black singers had, consciously or not, attempted this kind of synthesis before -- Guitar Slim, who Ray had worked with on Slim's smash "The Things That I Used To Do," sang with that sort of fervor -- Ray was the first to make it obvious, and make it sell anyway.
Answer: In a broad sense, Ray Charles did invent soul, if you accept the standard definition that "soul" music is where gospel music and blues music meet. (This is not the same thing as rhythm and blues, exactly, which mixes blues with elements of swing, pop, and jazz.) In 1954, Charles recorded "I Got A Woman," a secular reworking of a church standard entitled "My Jesus Is All the World to Me." It was an immediate smash hit on what would be later called the "R&B" charts, and while other black singers had, consciously or not, attempted this kind of synthesis before -- Guitar Slim, who Ray had worked with on Slim's smash "The Things That I Used To Do," sang with that sort of fervor -- Ray was the first to make it obvious, and make it sell anyway.
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