Doesn't get enough credit as funny as it sounds

>>63809541
/mu/ won't talk about him since he's an ancient black musician from an era when blacks made music.

>>63809742
I think the problem is that he really didn't do anything important after 1965 and guys like James Brown kind of overtook him. While soul, funk, and disco were being molded, he was down in Nashville making novelty country songs.

The pioneer of soul, lot of energy, great fucking singles

>dude was married 9 times and had 11 kids

Man, how does one enjoy sex and women when they've been blind since childhood? You've never seen what the female figure looks like to appreciate it.

>>63809541
My biggest issue is the recording quality sounds so awful on all the albums I've tried.

Anyone rec any remastered or good recordings?

The guy had a HUGE discography spanning six decades spread across multiple labels, so it's a serious mess to sift through. Like the above poster said, his most important material and the only essential stuff was from 1957 to 64. Though he rarely made a bad album, most of his later records are paint-by-numbers and you'd miss nothing by not hearing them (My World and his finale Genius Loves Company being the most notable).

>>63809878
But his impact beforehand was fucking monumental, a few have come close in their lifetime in creating the impact he did.

>>63810233
True however it is unfortunate how much of his prime career was wasted by completely detaching himself from ongoing developments in the black music scene.

>>63810222
My World is slightly interesting as the nearly Social Security-age Ray tries to adopt hip-hop sounds to stay current after years and years of being disconnected from the black music world. Like most guys his age, he was not enthusiastic about hip-hop yet just canny enough to try a little of it to reach the kids instead of his 45 year old housewife audience.

The album has some of his traditional sound and some hip hop/New Jack Swing production. On the downside, it's dated worse than many other albums and sounds very much like the early 90s.

>>63810222
Yeah it did seem he was just making music for fun in the last 25 years instead of feeling he had something to prove.

>>63809541
when i was in kindergarten we did a play about him
it was weird

>>63810748
He also appeared on Sesame Street once or twice.

Late 50s-early 60s RC revolutionized R&B, soul, and country but he kind of ruined his career with drugs and by the time he got past those troubles, the hippie era was happening and made him sound like a dinosaur.