Ray Charles’ “Love Country Style” Returns
More than fifty years after its initial release, the Ray Charles Foundation and Tangerine Records have reissued the long-out-of-print albu
When the Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Ray Charles in 2021, it wasn’t simply to honor his hits; it was to acknowledge his seismic impact on country music’s evolution.
Born Ray Charles Robinson on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia, and raised in rural Florida, Charles grew up surrounded by gospel, blues, and country.
“I felt [country] was the closest music, really, to the blues,” he once said. “They’d make them steel guitars cry and whine, and it really attracted me.”
That deep connection blossomed in 1962 with Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, a record that the Hall of Fame calls “a powerful place in country music history.”
Its soulful interpretations of “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “You Don’t Know Me,” and “Born to Lose” not only became pop and R&B chart-toppers but also transformed how millions of listeners heard country music.
When Love Country Style first appeared in 1970, it was already clear that Ray Charles was more than the “Genius of Soul.” He was a bridge builder between blues and gospel, between Black and white America, and between the spirit of the South and the sophistication of modern pop.
Now, more than fifty years later, the Ray Charles Foundation and Tangerine Records have reissued the long-out-of-print album as part of the Tangerine Master Series, a lovingly restored collection that reveals the full depth of Charles’s musical daring.
Initially released in June 1970, Love Country Style stands among the most heartfelt of Charles’s country explorations, an album that merges Nashville storytelling with his R&B and gospel roots.
Featuring lush, gospel-tinged arrangements and songs by Mickey Newbury and Jimmy Webb, the record showcases Charles’s rare ability to make familiar material feel brand new. His takes on “Ring of Fire” and “Don’t Change On Me” shimmer with emotional immediacy. The latter even broke into the Top 20 on the R&B chart and reached the pop Top 40, affirming his reach far beyond genre borders.
Cultural critic Ayana Contreras writes in the new liner essay:
“Love Country Style drinks deeply from the country music well of genius, but is as rhythm-and-blues-rooted as it is in the countrypolitan idiom. In his hands, ‘Ring of Fire’ becomes a chorus of half-breathless seduction, well-suited for an isolated mid-century modern motel somewhere in the high desert of the American Southwest.”
Charles continued to return to country music throughout his career, from Country & Western Meets Rhythm & Blues (1965) to Friendship (1984), his Nashville duet album with Johnny Cash, George Jones, and Willie Nelson, which produced the No. 1 country hit “Seven Spanish Angels.”
The new reissue of Love Country Style has been restored and remastered under the direct supervision of The Ray Charles Foundation, ensuring every note retains the warmth and vitality of Charles’s original sessions.
It follows other Tangerine Master Series releases such as Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul (1963), featuring the Grammy-winning “Busted,” and Come Live With Me (1974). Each project reaffirms Charles’s independence as a label owner and creative visionary.
Charles died in 2004, just months before the release of Genius Loves Company, his Grammy-sweeping duets album featuring Willie Nelson and Norah Jones. But his vision endures through the songs, the sound, and the freedom he fought for.