The first album Ray Charles recorded after leaving Atlantic was an album of songs about US destinations.
The 1960 album ‘The Genius Hits The Road’ is about to be re-released with an additional six bonus tracks.Songs from the album included ‘Georgia On My Mind’, ‘Alabamy Bound’, ‘California Here I Come’, Blue Hawaii and ‘Deep In The Heart of Texas’.
The album was produced by the late Sid Feller who once said “This was the first album we made together. (Ray) wanted to do songs either about states or cities. A lot of the material he knew himself. He’d give me some titles and then check through catalogs and publishers for other ones that had names of cities or states.”
The bonus tracks are ‘Hit The Road Jack’, ‘Sentimental Journey’, ‘Blue Moon Of Kentucky’, ‘Rainy Night In Georgia’, ‘Long and Winding Road’, ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’ and ‘I Was On Georgia Time’.
They were sourced across various points in Charles’ career.
The album reached no. 9 in 1960 and spent 50 weeks on the chart.
‘The Genius Hits The Road’ will be released on September 22 through Concord.
