Consumer Guide Album

Ray Charles: The Birth of a Legend 1949-1952 [Ebony, 1994]
If you crave Ray Charles's early sides, the blues scholar in you will only achieve full satisfaction with this neat, complete double-CD. The piano pleases, the singing develops, and the songwriting tops out with the jocose "Kissa Me Baby." Soon he'll flower. But Nat King Cole and Charles Brown worked the same lounge-trio vein with far more flair. [Rolling Stone]