Ray Charles Video Museum: Busted

16 November 2014

Busted

Album: Ingredients In A Recipe For Soul, ABC/Paramount 465, August 1963.
Single (A): ABC 10481, August 1963, b/w Making Believe.

The album was recorded on 10 and 13 July 1963 in New York.

With Oliver Beener, Wallace Davenport, Phil Guilbeau, John Hunt, Roy Burrows, Floyd Jones, Curtis Miller - trumpets; Henderson Chambers, James Lee Harbert, Keg Johnson, Julian Priester, Fred Morden - trombones; Hank Crawford, Bill Pearson, Harold Minerve, Dan Turner - alto saxophones; James Clay, David Fathead Newman - tenor saxophones; Leroy Cooper - baritone saxophone; Al Hendrickson, Sonny Forriest - guitar; Joe Comfort, Edgar Willis - bass; Irving Cottler, Wilbert Hogan, Bob Thompson - drums. Backing vocals: The Jack Halloran Singers, The Raelettes with Margie Hendricks. Arranged by Benny Carter.

Remastering engineer Steve Hoffman wrote that:

"Listeners have also noticed that the song Busted is different sounding on the two DCC disks that used the song.

Why did they do two vintage mixes of that song? Well, ABC-Paramount used Bell Sound in New York to do all of their lacquer cutting, editing, etc. for all of their product no matter where it was recorded. Ray liked to record where Ray liked (not always Bell Sound) and it was an old Bell Sound billing trick to get extra bread (money) like this: Here is what they did. Sneaky. Busted was recorded at Capitol in 1963. As per agreement with ABC-Paramount, Capitol mixed the song to stereo. But, Bell Sound (not to be outdone, or perhaps in revenge for the fact that Ray didn't record it there) remixed it immediately and marked their version "master". The Bell Sound version ended up on the old ABC-Paramount stereo LP. Double billing.

On the DCC Gold CD of Ray Charles Ingredients In A Recipe For Soul, the original (and in my opinion better, but less wet Capitol original stereo mix version) was used and on the two disk Ray Charles - Greatest Hits DCC/Sandstone set, the Bell Sound album remix was used. Why? Ray liked one version one week and the other version the next week when we were working on the stuff. Simple as that!"