‘What’d I Say’: The improvised masterpiece that broke Ray Charles into the mainstream
It is difficult to imagine what the world of R&B, soul, or rock and roll would have looked like if Ray Charles had never broken into the musical mainstream. “I never wanted to be famous,” the pianist once declared, “I only wanted to be great”. You can’t argue with that.
In pursuit of that greatness, Charles blazed a trail that countless musicians, writers, and artists continue to follow to this very day. Penning and producing a litany of tracks stretching from old-school blues to proto-rock, R&B, and jazz, the Georgia-born musician seemed to immerse himself in all the vibrant, expansive sounds of Black America from the 1940s onwards. However, it took the American mainstream a little while longer to fully recognise the groundbreaking genius at the heart of his recordings.
The United States was a divided nation when Charles took his first steps into the music industry. Black people were on the lowest rung of the societal ladder, forced to deal with segregation, institutionalised oppression, and horrific persecution at the hands of hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, in addition to the American government’s racist policies.
One of the prevailing weapons against this vast inequality was in art, music, and cultural expression, but the work of many now-iconic Black artists was deliberately subdued and kept away from the mainstream by that racist society. So, even though styles like blues, jazz, and gospel were utterly intrinsic to the development of rock and pop music, the artists who pioneered those styles were rarely afforded any credit for their work.
Even still, it was only a matter of time before mainstream audiences became entranced by the universal sounds of Ray Charles. During the early 1950s, he released a string of early R&B masterpieces, but even when he signed to Atlantic Records in 1952, he still couldn’t seem to break into the pop charts. Beloved efforts like ‘Mess Around’ and ‘I’ve Got a Woman’ captured the attention of the then fairly niche R&B audience. However, it wasn’t until 1959 that Charles finally found his mainstream breakthrough.
That life-changing track came in the form of ‘What’d I Say’, released via Atlantic in June 1959, and blew virtually every other track of that era out of the water. The root of the song came from an improvisation, harking back to Charles’ deep appreciation of jazz. Reportedly, during a show in Pennsylvania, he and his orchestra had gone through their entire set, but the audience was braying for more, and so came this energetic, soulful improvisation, which then became the foundation for ‘What’d I Say’.
After performing the track throughout the band’s tour, Charles brought it to Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records, and the following year, it was released, although its extensive runtime meant it split over to both sides of the vinyl single.
Nevertheless, audiences immediately reacted to the fresh, energetic, and modern sound of the song. Not only did the track thrust the musician into the mainstream, earning him his first gold record, but it was utterly instrumental in the further development of rock and roll as well as the birth of soul music.
Soul, like virtually every genre, is a vast amalgamation of influences with origins difficult to truly pinpoint. However, ‘What’d I Say’ was certainly a defining moment in carving out the attitudes and sonic characteristics of the style, which would go on to define the musical mainstream of America throughout the 1960s.
So, although Charles never set out to become famous, the trailblazing quality of his compositions made that fame something of an inevitability. Audiences had never witnessed anything like ‘What’d I Say’ before. It was a song of freedom, joy, and breaking down societal barriers, so it is no surprise that it typified Ray Charles’ sound and became a crowning jewel within his extensive discography, making him one of the greats.
