Before Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter,’ There Was Ray Charles’ ‘Modern Sounds’ – Though His Country Embrace Didn’t Begin or End There (2024)

If Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter receives a Grammy nomination for album of the year, which seems very likely, it won’t be the first time a genre-defying Black superstar has been nominated in that marquee category for a country album. Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music was nominated for the award in 1962. (Charles’ enduring classic lost to Vaughn Meader’s The First Family, a hit comedy album about the Kennedy family — which would have been seemed dated pretty quickly, even if the unthinkable hadn’t happened in Dallas just six months after the album’s Grammy win.)

Charles’ album topped the Billboard 200 for 14 consecutive weeks and spawned a pair of smash singles on the Billboard Hot 100: “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” which logged five weeks at No. 1, and “You Don’t Know Me,” which peaked at No. 2. Both songs had been country hits for other artists. Don Gibson, the writer of “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and country queen Kitty Wells both had separate hits with that song in 1958. Eddy Arnold had a country hit with “You Don’t Know Me” in 1956. Arnold, the top country hitmaker of the 1940s, co-wrote the song.

None of the songs from Charles’ album made of Billboard’s Hot C&W Sides chart, as Hot Country Songs was then known. But they did make Billboard’s Hot R&B Sides chart: “I Can’t Stop Loving You” logged 10 weeks at No. 1, while “You Don’t Know Me” reached No. 5. Charles’ recording of “I Can’t Stop Loving You” won a Grammy for best rhythm & blues recording. It was also nominated for record of the year and best solo vocal performance, male.

A little more than six months after the release of Modern Sounds, Charles released Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music (Volume Two). It also did well, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and spawning another pair of top 10 hits on the Hot 100, “You Are My Sunshine” and “Take These Chains From My Heart.” “You Are My Sunshine” was co-written by Jimmie Davis, who released a classic recording of the song in 1940. Charles’ B-side to “You Are My Sunshine” was a cover of another top-tier country classic, Hank Williams’ “Your Cheating Heart.” Hy Heath and Fred Rose co-wrote “Take These Chains From My Heart,” which Williams took to No. 1 on the Country Best-Sellers chart in 1953, five months after his death.

Charles was in his early 30s when the Modern Sounds albums were released. Beyoncé is a decade older than that now – 42. Both artists were born and reared in the South (Charles in Georgia; Bey in Texas), so country was a big part of the music of their youth.

Just as Beyoncé had recorded a country-flavored song (“Daddy Lessons” on Lemonade) before she recorded Cowboy Carter, Charles had a history of recording country songs both before and after his Modern Sounds albums.

In 1959, he recorded a cover version of Hank Snow’s 1950 country classic “I’m Moving On.” Charles’ version, with the title tweaked slightly to a more down-home country “I’m Movin’ On,” made No. 40 on the Hot 100.

Charles followed the Modern Sounds albums with a version of Harlan Howard’s “Busted” (a 1963 hit for Johnny Cash with The Carter Family) and Buck Owens’ “Crying Time.” Charles’ versions of both songs won Grammys for best rhythm & blues recording. Charles had another big hit with a song written by Owens, the top country hitmaker of the 1960s: “Together Again.”

Charles continued releasing country-leaning material, though without the same degree of success. His 1965 album Country & Western Meets Rhythm & Blues reached No. 116 on the Billboard 200. Love Country Style hit No. 192 on that same chart in 1970.

Charles didn’t make Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart, as it was then called, until 1980, when “Beers to You” — a song he recorded with Clint Eastwood for Eastwood’s film Any Which Way You Can (a sequel to the film star’s 1978 smash Every Which Way but Loose) — reached No. 55.

Two years later, Charles had a top 20 hit on Hot Country Singles with “Born to Love Me.” That song brought Charles a Grammy nod for best country vocal performance, male – his first and only Grammy nomination in a country category.

In March 1985, Charles finally landed a No. 1 on Top Country Albums with Friendship, a duets project. The album included “Seven Spanish Angels,” a collab with Willie Nelson, which topped Hot Country Singles that same week. The titans have much in common: a mastery of multiple genres, and success with one song in particular. Both had No. 1, Grammy-winning hits with “Georgia on My Mind.” Charles’ 1960 version topped the Hot 100. Nelson’s 1978 version headed Hot Country Singles.

Four other songs from Friendship reached the top 20: “We Didn’t See a Thing” (a collab with George Jones with Chet Atkins), “Rock and Roll Shoes” (with B.J. Thomas), “It Ain’t Gonna Worry My Mind” (with Mickey Gilley) and “Two Old Cats Like Us (with Hank Williams, Jr.).

In 2000, Ray Charles – The Complete Country and Western Recordings (1959-1986), released on Rhino Records, received a Grammy nod for best historical album.

Charles was one of the 10 inaugural inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2021, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He is, to date, the only Black artist in both Halls. Will Beyoncé one day join him? I wouldn’t put it past her, would you?