• You’ll find incredible Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides of this stereo copy of Charles’ 1962 follow up to Modern Sounds In Country and Western Music 
• Features Ray’s Big Band with the Raelettes on one side and the legendary Jack Halloran Singers on the other
• Finally, here is the right sound for these acclaimed songs you know well, classics such as You Are My Sunshine; Your Cheating Heart; Oh, Lonesome Me, and nine more
• 5 stars: “Vol. 2 defied the curse of the sequel and was just as much of an artistic triumph as its predecessor … the miracle is that Charles’ hurt, tortured, soulfully twisting voice transforms the backgrounds as well as the material; you believe what he’s singing.”

This ’60s LP has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern pressings cannot BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back.

Having done this for so long, we understand and appreciate that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.). The music is not so much about the details in the recording, but rather in trying to recreate a solid, palpable, real Ray Charles singing live in your listening room. The best copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of older recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but less than one out of 100 new records do, if our experience with the hundreds we’ve played can serve as a guide.

What the best sides of this Five Star Classic have to offer is not hard to hear:

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1962
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

A Big Group of Musicians Needs This Kind of Space

One of the qualities that we don’t talk about on the site nearly enough is the SIZE of the record’s presentation. Some copies of the album just sound small — they don’t extend all the way to the outside edges of the speakers, and they don’t seem to take up all the space from the floor to the ceiling. In addition, the sound can often be recessed, with a lack of presence and immediacy in the center.

Other copies — my notes for these copies often read “BIG and BOLD” — create a huge soundfield, with the music positively jumping out of the speakers. They’re not brighter, they’re not more aggressive, they’re not hyped-up in any way, they’re just bigger and clearer.

And most of the time those very special pressings are just plain more involving. When you hear a copy that does all that — a copy like this one — it’s an entirely different listening experience.

Hi-Fidelity

What do we love about these vintage pressings? The timbre of every instrument is Hi-Fi in the best sense of the word. The unique sound of every instrument is reproduced with remarkable fidelity. That’s what we at Better Records mean by “Hi-Fi,” not the kind of Audiophile Phony BS Sound that passes for Hi-Fidelity these days. There’s no boosted top, there’s no bloated bottom, there’s no sucked-out midrange.

This is Hi-Fidelity for those who recognize The Real Thing when they hear it. I’m pretty sure our customers do, and whoever picks this record up is guaranteed to get a real kick out of it.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

You Are My Sunshine
No Letter Today
Someday
Don’t Tell Me Your Troubles
Midnight
Oh, Lonesome Me

Side Two

Take These Chains From My Heart
Your Cheating Heart
I’ll Never Stand In Your Way
Making Believe
Teardrops In My Heart
Hang Your Head In Shame

AMG  5 Star Rave Review

Having struck the mother lode with Vol. 1 of this genre-busting concept, “Brother Ray,” producer Sid Feller, and ABC-Paramount went for another helping and put it out immediately. The idea was basically the same — raid the then-plentiful coffers of Nashville for songs and turn them into Ray Charles material with either a big band or a carpet of strings and choir.

This time, though, instead of a random mix of backgrounds, the big band tracks — again arranged by Gerald Wilson in New York — went on side one, and the strings/choir numbers — again arranged by Marty Paich in Hollywood — were placed on side two. Saleswise, it couldn’t miss, but, more importantly, Vol. 2 defied the curse of the sequel and was just as much of an artistic triumph as its predecessor, if not as immediately startling.

Charles’ transfiguration of “You Are My Sunshine” sets the tone, and, as before, there’s a good quota of Don Gibson material; “Don’t Tell Me Your Troubles” becomes a fast gospel rouser and “Oh Lonesome Me” a frantic big band number.

Paich lays on the ’50s and early-’60s Muzak with an almost gleeful, over-the-top commercial slickness that with an ordinary artist would have been embarrassing. But the miracle is that Charles’ hurt, tortured, soulfully twisting voice transforms the backgrounds as well as the material; you believe what he’s singing. It appealed across the board, from the teenage singles-buying crowd to adult consumers of easy listening albums and Charles’ core black audience — and even those who cried “sellout” probably took some secret guilty pleasures from these recordings.

While Charles didn’t get a number one chartbuster à la “I Can’t Stop Loving You” out of this package, “Sunshine” got up to number seven, and “Take These Chains From My Heart,” with its Shearing-like piano solo and big string chart, made it to number eight — which wasn’t shabby at all.