Ever since Dirty Dancing in the late '80s, it has been an industry custom to follow a hit soundtrack with a sequel a few months after the original turned into a hit. By the mid-2000s, this practice was standard, and labels held back material from the original for the sequel, which would nevertheless pale in comparison to the original since, apart from that handful of songs, the rest of the material felt a little scraped together. Given this pattern, it would be easy to assume that More Music from Ray, the 2005 sequel to the ...
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Ever since Dirty Dancing in the late '80s, it has been an industry custom to follow a hit soundtrack with a sequel a few months after the original turned into a hit. By the mid-2000s, this practice was standard, and labels held back material from the original for the sequel, which would nevertheless pale in comparison to the original since, apart from that handful of songs, the rest of the material felt a little scraped together. Given this pattern, it would be easy to assume that More Music from Ray, the 2005 sequel to the soundtrack to the 2004 Ray Charles biopic, would seem like a lesser effort to the original, but this overlooks one key fact: the original source material was not a bunch of songs that had a tenuous connection to the film (as is the case with most soundtracks); rather, the music was integral to the film itself. Plus, the music itself came from Charles' classic recordings for Atlantic and ABC from the '50s and '60s, which is among the greatest music of the 20th century, so it's pretty hard to get a second soundtrack to Ray wrong, and More Music from Ray proves to be every bit as terrific as the original. There is an element of this being a Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, with singles that didn't make the cut the first time -- most notably "Leave My Woman Alone," "Lonely Avenue," "Rockhouse," and "Busted" are here -- but what makes this collection noteworthy is that it does a better job than the first soundtrack of illustrating the range of Charles' music, containing healthy portions of his excursions into blues, jazz, and country. Also notable are three new recordings that Charles cut in 2003 for use in Taylor Hackford's film. These were designed to be music cues for quiet, intimate moments in the film, so they're not only appropriately laid-back, but occasionally seem a little too tied to the movie -- for instance, "Drown in My Own Tears/You Don't Know Me" has dialogue filtered throughout it and ends abruptly, while "Every Day I Have the Blues" is sung by Chris Thomas King with Ray on piano. But the other new cut, a version of "Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand" featuring ex Guns N' Roses guitar slinger Slash playing some tremendous, revelatory jazz solos, is a low-key gem that goes a long way in proving that Ray Charles remained a dynamic performer. And while that's not quite enough to make this a must-have for Charles fanatics, it's a nice final touch on a collection that's a good second stop for listeners who just discovered the genius of Ray Charles either through Ray or its accompanying soundtrack. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
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