by Alan Swyer The best thing about being part of Ray Charles’ inner circle – other than spending time with the man justly called “The Genius” – was meeting so many people who were, or at one time or another had been, part of his world. Some, like Solomon Burke, Mable John, and Billy Osborne,
by Alan Swyer Some of our greatest music was created in strange ways. A Ray Charles classic came to life when the manager of a theater feared that the audience would tear out the seats if Ray, who’d run out of material, didn’t take the stage again. Instructing his band to follow his lead, Ray
by Alan Swyer There are words and phrases so familiar, it’s easy to believe they’ve been around forever. Though the term Soul Music feels that way, in truth its genesis actually owes to one specific person: a singer named Solomon Burke. In the pre-Amazon, pre-download days of actual record stores, music was divided into categories: