我说了什么 (1959)

"What'd I Say" (or "What I Say") is an American rhythm and blues song by Ray Charles, released in June 1959. As a single divided into two parts, it was one of the first soul songs. The composition was improvised one evening late in 1958 when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their entire set list at a show and still had time left; the response from many audiences was so enthusiastic that Charles announced to his producer that he was going to record it.

After his run of R&B hits, this song finally broke Charles into mainstream pop music and itself sparked a new sub-genre of R&B titled soul, finally putting together all the elements that Charles had been creating since he recorded "I Got a Woman" in 1954. The gospel and rhumba influences combined with the sexual innuendo in the song made it not only widely popular but very controversial to both white and black audiences. It earned Ray Charles his first gold record and has been one of the most influential songs in R&B and rock and roll history. For the rest of his career, Charles closed every concert with the song. It was added to the National Recording Registry in 2002 and appeared in the 2003 and 2021 versions of Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list: at number 10 in 2003 and at number 80 in 2021.

Background

Ray Charles was 28 years old in 1958, with 10 years of experience recording primarily rhythm and blues music in a style similar to that of Nat King Cole and Charles Brown. He signed with Atlantic Records in 1952 where producers Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler encouraged him to broaden his repertoire. Wexler would later remember that Atlantic Records' success came not from the artists' experience, but the enthusiasm for the music: "We didn't know shit about making records, but we were having fun". Ertegun and Wexler found that a hands-off approach was the best way of encouraging Charles. Wexler later said, "I realized the best thing I could do with Ray was leave him alone".

During Charles' heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, he toured for 300 days a year with a seven-piece orchestra. He employed another Atlantic singing trio named the Cookies and renamed them the Raelettes when they backed him up on the road. In 1954, Charles began merging gospel sounds and instruments with lyrics that addressed more secular issues. His first attempt was in the song "I Got a Woman", based either on the melodies from the gospel songs, The Southern Tones "It Must Be Jesus" or an uptempo, "I Got a Savior (Way Across Jordan)". It was Charles' first record that received attention from white audiences, but made some black audiences uncomfortable with its black gospel derivatives; Charles later stated that the joining of gospel and R&B was not a conscious decision.

In December 1958, he had a hit on the R&B charts with "Night Time Is the Right Time", an ode to carnality that was sung between Charles and one of the Raelettes, Margie Hendricks, with whom Charles was having an affair. Since 1956, Charles had also included a Wurlitzer electric piano on tour because he did not trust the tuning and quality of the pianos provided to him at every venue. On the occasions he would play it, he was derided by other musicians.