Flashback Soul: Ray Charles Remembers the “Hard Times”

(November 25, 2016) In October 1961, Atlantic released the great Ray Charles’s final record for the label, The Genius Sings The Blues,  a compilation of tracks Charles had recorded in various styles over his 10-years there.  The record was initially regarded by some critics as a haphazard collection designed by Atlantic simply to cash in one last time on Charles’s fame, but over the years it has come to be widely considered as perhaps the best of Charles’s compilations of that era. 

We feature here the track “Hard Times,” a bluesy ballad that moseys along as if Charles were performing it in a smokey speakeasy on the house’s aging, upright piano.  Enjoy.

By Robb Patryk