Welcome back!

Before I slip back into the daily grind at ‘The Big Top’ (I work with a bunch of clowns!) for another working week, I want to send a big thank you to everyone who made it down to our monthly Hook & Sling excursion at La Havana in Chichester on Saturday, your continued attendance always makes our night an enjoyable one.

I also want to hip you all to something very special this coming weekend. Jamie Coughlan’s monthly night Bump & Hustle at The Elbow Room, returns this Saturday 13th June with a seriously heavyweight DJ roster.

Marius Zahl Johnsen will finally make it over from Oslo, Norway where he will be joined by Aaron Anderson from the legendary Ann Arbor Soul Club in Detroit. Also joining the party will be long time record collector Andy Marshall from the Midlands here in Good Ole Blighty! I will also be heading over to East London to join in the fun. If you are within travelling distance of London I strongly urge you to make it down for this one! More info and details can be found HERE

So onto business and the 45 that I bring you today is taken from a recent grip of 45s I scored last week. These all turned up whilst out digging at one of my favourite spots.

Those that swing by here on the reg will know I’m a huge fan of ‘Brother’ Ray and always pick up anything by him which I happen across. Today’s choice is a 45 that had slipped under my soul radar, but had me kicking myself for not having scored it earlier!

In 1961 Ray Charles enlisted The Raelettes along with Margie Hendricks and set about recording his own take on ‘You Are My Sunshine’, a song most of you should be familiar with.

There are literally hundreds of different cover versions floating around out there in the musical ether, but the arrangement Ray Charles drops on this one gives it an all together different feeling to most of the versions I have heard.

Ray Charles was recording under the ABC umbrella at the time, and with far more money to spend on production, this cut makes good use of the orchestra set up he was well known for using round this time.

The single itself is a finger-snapping groover with a jazzy feel to it. The Raelettes backing vocals certainly give depth to the 45 and Margie Hendricks solo about 1.30 minutes in adds another layer to proceedings. All in all a quality piece of underplayed soul!

Enjoy today’s 45 and I’ll try and roll by here later in the week if the ‘clowns’ afford me the time to!!