Artist	Song
The Nat "King" Cole Trio	Sweet Lorraine
from Hit That Jive Jack: The Earliest Recordings (1996)
Charles Brown & Johnny Moore's 3 Blazers	Drifting Blues
from The History of Rhythm and Blues - Disc 1 (2009)
Art Tatum	How High The Moon
from Piano Starts Here (1994)
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan	Baby It's Cold Outside
from Ella: The Legendary Decca Recordings (1995)
Louis Jordan	Let the Good Times Roll
from No Moe! Louis Jordan's Greatest Hits (1992)
Buddy Rich, Charlie Parker, Curly Russell, Dizzy Gillespie & Thelonious Monk	My Melancholy Baby
from Bird and Diz (1997)
T-Bone Walker	I Got a Break, Baby
from The Very Best Of (2008)
Tampa Red	When Things Go Wrong With You
from Chicago Blues Kings (2009)
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra	Solitude
from The War (The Soundtrack) (1949)
Coleman Hawkins	Body and Soul
from Body and Soul (2008)
Alex Bradford	Too Close to Heaven
from Gospel (2008)
Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra	Flying Home
from Flying Home (2008)
Percy Mayfield	Please Send Me Someone to Love
from Specialty Profiles: Percy Mayfield (2006)
Hank Williams	Half as Much
from 20 of Hank Williams' Greatest Hits (1997)
Billie Holiday	Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)
from Billie Holiday's Greatest Hits (1995)
Pete Johnson	Johnson and Turner Blues (alt. Take)
from Pete Johnson - Radio Broadcasts, Film Soundtracks, Alternate Takes (1939-c.1947) (2005)
Lucky Millinder And His Orchestra	Cherokee
from This Is Jazz (2007)
Count Basie and His Orchestra	Lil' Darlin'
from Blue Big Bands (2008)
Erskine Hawkins	After Hours
from The Definitive Blues Collection, Vol. 5 (2008)
Lester Young	Lester Leaps In
from The Best of Lester Young (2006)

Comment:

Country, jazz, pop, blues . . . all the music Ray grew up on used to be segregated — like the rest of America — until he began blurring lines and breaking barriers. How much did jazz legend Art Tatum influence a young Ray Charles? "Even later, when I got fairly good at the piano," said Ray, "I knew that I couldn't even carry Art Tatum's (slop) bucket." Tatum's Mach 3 rocket blast through "How High The Moon" is exceeded only by his genius — there's that word again — at improvisation. Nat "King" Cole jumps the gap between jazz and pop in "Sweet Lorraine," pointing the way toward Charles Brown's bourbon-smooth performance in "Drifting Blues." Prissy sophisticate Ella Fitzgerald plays hard-to-get with suave hound dog Louis Jordan in "Baby It's Cold Outside" (later a hit for Ray with Betty Carter). And in the honky-tonk heartbreak of "Half as Much," country icon Hank Williams two-steps his way to #2 in a hit that Ray would rebuild from the ground up on [i]Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music[/i]. From Billie Holiday to T-Bone Walker, we've got the key artists and essential tracks that helped turn a blind boy from Georgia into a legend all over the world.

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