That Eric Alper

 Founded by Ray Charles in the 1960s, Tangerine Records is proud to celebrate the 17x GRAMMY Award-winning singer, songwriter, and pianist’s singular legacy with the Tangerine Master Series, a new slate of reissues highlighting Charles’ best-known music alongside classic records long out of print, and ready for rediscovery. Each album in the series has been restored and remastered under the direct supervision of The Ray Charles Foundation, painting a vivid new portrait of an artist and icon whose impact continues to expand and inspire. Beginning Friday, August 22, with Come Live With Me, a blend of pop and gospel-infused soul that sees Charles demonstrating his unmatched versatility.

Remastered by 5x GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Michael Graves and acclaimed vinyl mastering engineer Jeff Powell, this long-overdue reissue marks the album’s first appearance on vinyl in over 50 years. Vinyl and streaming arrive August 22, with CDs available September 26. Pre-orders and pre-saves are available here.

Come Live With Me showcases Ray Charles in full ’70s crossover mode, embracing string-laden arrangements, country-tinged ballads, and soulful soft rock. The album plays like Two Sides of a Saturday Night – elegant and introspective at the start, loose and electrifying by the end. Side A, arranged by longtime collaborator and conductor Sid Feller, highlights Charles’s emotive vocal delivery on lush, orchestrated ballads such as “Till There Was You” and the title track, the latter of which proved a Top 20 AC and Top 30 R&B favorite. In contrast, Side B shifts to a more upbeat, R&B-driven sound, with tracks like “Somebody” and “Problems, Problems” exhibiting his dynamic range and adaptability. At a time when R&B was defined by the politically charged, genre-blending work of Sly Stone, Funkadelic, Curtis Mayfield, and Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles didn’t chase trends. Instead, he carved his own path, doing something entirely his own.

“Revolution doesn’t always have to shout; it can exhibit comfort as the tide rolls counter,” writes esteemed music journalist/author Marcus J. Moore (The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America) in an exclusive essay penned expressly for this new reissue. “It can mean rest even as the outside rages, the push to self-reflect despite the angst of looking within. That’s what is heard on Come Live With Me: a man taking stock of the decisions he’s made and the love that’s gotten away. Only after such suffering can one be this mature, only after gray edges the scalp can mindfulness emerge.”

“Though the bulk of this album was very much Ray Charles doing his own thing, he also proved he could get with the times. ‘Problems, Problems,’ with its undulating bass, rhythmic drums and muted trumpet blasts, was clearly a funk tune; the lyrics about life’s struggles made it feel very much of the era. On the surface, the concluding track ‘Everybody Sing’ sounded uplifting and communal, a sunny, all-in-together gem meant to touch broad groups of listeners. The words said otherwise. “I’m travelin’ alone, singin’ a sad song,” Charles declared. “‘Til I find what’s right for me, I gotta keep movin’ on.” There went that self-awareness again: In the next line, he gave himself grace for the mistakes he’s made, choosing to push forward with a clear mind instead of harping on yesteryear.

“Come Live With Me, is Charles at the midpoint of reinvigoration, just him and his thoughts and the will to ascend. Protest can look like that, too: Navigating the path one turn at a time, not knowing where you’ll end up, still believing that everything’s going to be fine.”

In the early ’60s, just one pop hit – the revolutionary “What’d I Say” – into his career, Ray Charles realized he’d outgrown the traditional music business. Risking everything to secure his creative and financial independence, he negotiated a deal that would reshape the industry, granting him full control and ownership of his recordings and the means to build his own publishing company, recording studio, and business offices. Recording what he wanted, when he wanted, Ray Charles would answer to nobody but himself. This is where the story of Tangerine Records begins, created by Ray Charles to achieve greatness on his own terms and the label that remains the only authorized home of some of his greatest works.

Beginning with 1974’s Come Live With Me, the Tangerine Master series will see reissues of such masterpieces as 1963’s Ingredients In A Recipe For Soul, which reached #2 on the Billboard 200 thanks in part to the GRAMMY Award-winning, top 5 hit, “Busted.” Further reissues will include 1970’s Love Country Style, one of the finest examples of Charles’ country crossover work and out of print since its original release, and No One Does It Like…Ray Charles! – the Great Ray Charles album that should have been a previously uncompiled collection of singles circa 1962-1965, released for the first time ever as a cohesive body of work, offering a rare glimpse into a prolific and creatively explosive period in Charles’ multi-decade career.

As a truly independent artist with the freedom to trust his taste and the talent to back it up, Ray Charles summed up his own A&R strategy simply: “If I like it, I’m gonna sing it.” The result is an oeuvre that boldly defies categorization, rewarding open ears and curious minds. With decades of hindsight, the consistently staggering quality of the music Charles made on Tangerine Records becomes far more obvious than it ever was to critics trying to make real-time sense of an artist who had no concerns for fleeting trends or nostalgic expectations. That means for every iconic song, for every classic album, there are a dozen revelations just waiting to be heard, each crafted with as much care and delivered with as much soul as the immortal Ray Charles hits that continue to be passed across generations and around the world.

Tracklist:
Till There Was You
If You Go Away
It Takes So Little Time
Come Live With Me
Somebody
Problems, Problems
Where Was He
Louise
Everybody Sing