Consumer Guide Album

Ray Charles: A Message From the People [ABC/Tangerine, 1972]
Beginning with "Lift Every Voice and Sing," an anthem sung by black schoolchildren, and climaxing with "America the Beautiful," ditto but with less reason, Charles says his piece. Like the ecologist he is, he extracts all remaining truth from "Abraham, Martin and John," and though he may be naive he adds a menace to "Heaven Help Us All" that Stevie Wonder wasn't genius enough to convey and turns Melanie's "What Have They Done to My Song, Ma" into the outcry of black musicians everywhere--which is probably why it rocks (and swings) like nothing he's done in years. B+