Ray Charles – I Don’t Need No Doctor

Sometimes when I’m thinking about what song to bring you I have a look through my record collection and listen to a few tracks and pick whichever one grabs me on that particular day. Today’s selection though came as a no-brainer due in no small part to the fact that today would have seen the 83rd birthday of one of the most important figures in the history of popular music – the one and only, Mr Ray Charles.

Much has been written about the great man over the years, and there was the small matter of a biopic of his life in which Jamie Foxx gave an outstanding Oscar-winning performance (incidentally the film was show last night in the U.K.) which went some way to telling the story of Brother Ray’s eventful life. For me to try to adequately tell the story of his influence of not just soul music, but pop music in general would be pretty futile. If you haven’t seen the film yet, I highly recommend doing so as it makes for compelling viewing.

So, with such a huge body of quality work available, it was no easy task to pick one track in particular to feature for you. The reason for this selection is because I remember first hearing it some time ago now (during the time that I was throwing myself head-first into all things mod) and it really stood out for me. It had an undeniable vibe of “cool” and seemed to sum up exactly what I thought “mod” music should be. Sometime later when I started dj’ing (really because I wanted to share some of my record collection rather than because of any financial incentives), this track always seemed to find it’s way into my record case and indeed my sets at the various mod clubs that I would play in. It’s one of those tracks that still remains immensely popular on the mod scene, even today.

So I’d like you all to join me in raising a toast today to the musical genius of Mr Ray Charles. Cheers!