"Legend has it that famed recording artist Billy Joel has said Ray Charles was more important than Elvis. To wit, Frank Sinatra called Charles at one point the “only true genius” in show business. With a steadfast, yet brittle almost woodgrain voice, fingers that could seemingly boogie-woogie all night long, and a songwriting vision (despite being literally blind) that stretched for decades, and continues to do so today, Charles is an American treasure.
One of the artist’s most famous hit songs was the salacious “I Got a Woman,” which he released in 1954 as a single (with the B-side being his gut-wrenching tune, “Come Back Baby”). And both songs appeared on his 1957 self-titled record, which was later renamed, Hallelujah I Love Her So. But Charles told Pop Chronicles before he died that he was playing “I Got a Woman” for about a year before recording it.
Charles recorded the track on November 18, 1954, in the Atlanta studios of the Georgia Tech radio station WGST. The song became his first hit, climbing to No. 1 on the R&B chart in January 1955. Rooted in gospel sounds, the song is steeped in what Charles was listening to at the time while on the road in the hot summer of 1954. Charles wrote the track with his bandleader Renald Richard.
It was the combination of church sounds with secular lyrics that made the songwriter famous. It was his soul music, and some say the first-ever soul music. “I Got a Woman” was built on the tune “It Must Be Jesus” by the band the Southern Tones, as well as a bridge inspired by the song “Living on Easy Street” by Big Bill Broonzy. “ again pinched from the brilliant Facebook page Don’s Tunes
by Jacob Uitti / American Songwriter
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