In 1979, when Georgia made it the state song, you can bet the 1930 Hoagy Carmichael recording wasn’t the one people were thinking of. The way “Georgia on My Mind” connected with audiences also put the track on an entirely different level from the rest of The Genius Hits the Road. The LP consists entirely of place songs, from “Alabamy Bound” to “Mississippi Mud.” But Charles’ biographer noted the singer was in tears while recording “Georgia on My Mind.” If you look at the track listing of The Genius Hits the Road, you see Charles didn’t only have Georgia on his mind those sessions. “And I still sing it most nights I’m performing.” “It was just a beautiful, romantic melody,” Charles said in Brother Ray, some 18 years after its recording. And Charles was responding to the tune Carmichael wrote. In other words, he was a writer at work with Carmichael, a masterful pop composer. And he wouldn’t say if he was thinking of the arms of a woman or those of a hometown. Gorrell, who wrote the lyrics to Carmichael’s music, said he thought up the words while thinking of warmer climes one frigid night as a young man in New York City. Charles said he sang ‘Georgia on My Mind’ simply for its ‘beautiful, romantic melody’ 1960: Ray Charles (1930-2004) and Patricia in France | Roger Viollet via Getty Images “I’ve never known a lady named Georgia,” Charles said, noting the exception of one family friend. Then maybe it was a woman, for whom he seems to yearn as “other arms reach out”? As he interpreted Carmichael’s lyrics, Charles wasn’t thinking along those lines either. “I wasn’t dreaming of the state when I recorded the song, even though I was born there,” Charles said in his autobiography Brother Ray (1978). That wasn’t the motivation for Charles’ moving rendition of “Georgia on My Mind,” however. So when Charles sang “In peaceful dreams I see / The road leads back to you” decades later, you’d be inclined to think he was tapping into nostalgia for his first days on earth.

Charles was born in Georgia to a mother who had temporarily left her home in Greenville, Florida.Īfter Charles’ birth, his mother took him back to Greenville, where he spent his early years. If you know some details of Charles’ biography, it could make sense to imagine him singing “Georgia on My Mind” while thinking of his earliest days. People who viewed this item also viewed Ray Charles Cassette Tapes Lot of Two Georgia on My Mind The Legend Lives Ray Charles - Greatest Hits - Cassette Tape. RELATED: John Lennon Traced 2 Beatles Songs Back to Ray Charles’ ‘What’d I Say’ Ray Charles said he didn’t sing ‘Georgia on My Mind’ thinking about the state or a woman Ray Charles in 1961 | Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images When Charles looked back at recording “Georgia on My Mind” for his LP The Genius Hits the Road (1960), the native of the Peach State said he didn’t have his birthplace on his mind. Though it sounds like a song Charles wrote from his heart, the great Hoagy Carmichael (along with lyricist Stuart Gorrell) penned the track way back in 1930 - the same year Charles was born in the city of Albany, in southwestern Georgia. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time with “Georgia On My Mind,” which remains one of Charles’ best-loved songs.

6 on the Billboard pop charts, only marked the beginning of a long run of hit singles for Charles. The result is a more expansive, inclusive vision of pop, music that keeps rewriting its history with every beat.While Ray Charles started building a national following in the early 1950s, his reach became global with the ’59 hit “What’d I Say.” John Lennon recalled how many songs (including two by The Beatles) “What’d I Say” influenced over the years.īut “What’d I Say,” which peaked at No. More than half the songs here - 254 in all - weren’t present on the old list, including a third of the Top 100. Where the 2004 version of the list was dominated by early rock and soul, the new edition contains more hip-hop, modern country, indie rock, Latin pop, reggae, and R&B. They each sent in a ranked list of their top 50 songs, and we tabulated the results.

Ward to Bill Ward - as well as figures from the music industry and leading critics and journalists. To create the new version of the RS 500 we convened a poll of more than 250 artists, musicians, and producers - from Angelique Kidjo to Zedd, Sam Smith to Megan Thee Stallion, M. So we’ve decided to give the list a total reboot. But a lot has changed since 2004 back then the iPod was relatively new, and Billie Eilish was three years old. It’s one of the most widely read stories in our history, viewed hundreds of millions of times on this site. In 2004, Rolling Stone published its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

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