When Ray Charles left Atlantic Records in 1959, he never really said goodbye. Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun- the men who believed in him when he was a nowhere Nat Cole knockoff, who’d nurtured his talent and authored hit songs for him, who’d made their hard pitches to the countless DJs, promoters, and distributors who constituted the bare-knuckle world of 1940’s and 50’s R&B- were given just one chance to Charles’ offer from ABC-Paramount. In an unprecedented move for a black artist, ABC intended to sign Ray not as an artist, but as a producer- with his own label, publishing company, and, in an unprecedented move, the eventual ownership of his own masters. In 1960, that was the kind of deal even Sinatra couldn’t get.
Atlantic couldn’t hope to match it. Despite this, they simply assumed Charles would entertain a second round of negotiations. He didn’t. Nor did he call or write. Wexler and Ertegun learned of Charles’ defection via word of mouth. In the first week of December 1959, an industry friend tipped them to the news and, upon calling down to the New York Musicians Union, they were unceremoniously informed that, yes, Mr. Charles’ new contract with ABC-Paramount had indeed been signed and filed.
Atlantic’s brass, and indeed most of its staff, were stunned. “How could we lose Ray Charles and exist?” Wexler recalled.
Ray Charles however, wasted no time looking backward. The year 1960 marked the start of his cultural dominance, beginning with “Sticks and Stones”, closely followed by the release of what would become his signature song, “Georgia On My Mind” (#1 Pop, #3 R&B). There followed a steady stream of bold, bright, epochal hits, all of which made the Top 10 on one or both charts: “One Mint Julep”, “Hit the Road, Jack”, “Unchain My Heart”, “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, “You Are My Sunshine”, “Crying Time”, “Let’s Go Get Stoned”.
But around 1966, shortly after he kicked a twenty-year heroin addiction that had made him a jailbird, nearly scuttled his ABC deal and brought the ire of the Federal government, the hits got progressively smaller and steadily slower. By 1969, three full years removed from his last Top 10 single, ABC left Charles conspicuously absent from their annual full-page Billboard ad. Phones rang unanswered and messages were not returned. The company that had transformed Ray Charles from a phenomenon to an institution was beginning to tire of him, it seemed. Charles’ attempts, over the next four years, to reassure his superiors and reclaim his rightful place on the charts resulted in a strong run of albums that make up the last essential period of his long and incredibly messy catalog.