Country And Western Meets Rhythm And Blues (aka Together Again) (1965)

During his rehab-year off - without any live gigs to speak of - in 1965, Ray spend a lot of time in his studio. These sessions resulted in an avalanche of singles and three albums, each - seemingly - with a random distribution of songs*: Country & Western Meets Rhythm Blues a.k.a. Together Again (1965), Crying Time (Jan. 1966) and Ray’s Moods (Jul. 1966), and a slew of songs that only were issued as singles.

*As observed by Joël Dufour.

1. Together Again
2. I Like To Hear It Sometime
3. I've Got A Tiger By The Tail (Swingova)
4. Please Forgive And Forget
5. I Don't Care
6. Next Door To The Blues
7. Blue Moon Of Kentucky (Swingova)
8. Light Out Of Darkness
9. Maybe It's Nothing At All
10. All Night Long
11. Don't Let Her Know
12. Watch It Baby

This was the first album to come out with a number of tunes recorded at RPM, Ray's own studio at West Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles. The 4-track console was built by Tom Dowd.
Tunes #1, #4 and #8 were recorded at the United Studios in Hollywood in January 1965. Song #10 was recorded in February 1965 at the same studio. These four tracks had Rene Hall on guitar, and Earl Palmer on drums.
Tracks #4 and #8 were originally written for Ballad In Blue. I don't know if the different, string-less versions used in the film were also recorded at United.
The Jack Halloran Singers and The Raelettes took care of the backing vocals.

Tracks #3 and #7 were done in Ray's Swingova rhythm. The term had been invented by arranger Sid Feller when Ray resurrected R&B bandleader Buddy Johnson's 1943 hit Baby, Don't You Cry, to emphasize its hybrid swing/bossa nova style (at that time the bossa nova was 'sweeping the nation')*.

Arrangers: Sid Feller (#1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8,10, 11), Onzy Matthews (# 2, 6, 9), and Gerald Wilson (#12).

The album had the first in a series of tasteless album cover designs, a new responsibility of Ray's second man at Ray Charles Enterprises, Joe Adams.

* A fourth Swingova arrangement was Love's Gonna Live Here.

ABC/Paramount 520, August 1965.