Question for anyone who were old enough for Modern Sounds in Country and Western vol1

So, today I was reading a lot of information on Wikipedia about Ray Charles Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music Vol 1 regarding it's impact, sales and colour barriers it broke back in 1962. So I'll give a sample {I won't copy and past everything single thing word for word but this is what I read so far today} I was born in 1959 so I missed it but here's what I found.


Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music was released in April 1962 and quickly became one of the best-selling albums recorded by a black musician of the time, as well as one of the best-selling country albums, shipping at least 500,000 copies in its first three months of release. This achievement was due in part to the mainstream promotional efforts Modern Sounds had received from ABC prior to and following release. The album proved to be a crossover hit as well, as distributors claimed the record had been selling in pop, R&B and country music markets; at the time, often referred to as white and black markets during the period.
Writing of the album shortly after its release, Billboard magazine claimed that, "in addition to being powerful dealer material, this package will fracture knowledgeable jockeys who will find in it a wealth of material to talk about as well as play." By mid-April, reports of the album's sales and radio airplay had started coming in from cities such as Dallas and Philadelphia. On June 23, 1962, the mono issue of Modern Sounds replaced the West Side Story soundtrack album as the number one album in the United States, knocking it off the top of the Billboard Pop Albums chart

There's more which I'll post later but now my question is this for anyone who were old enough then. How big of a deal was this era throughout Rays career from your experience between 1962-1963?

Part 2:

The album spawned four charting singles, "Born to Lose", "Careless Love", "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "You Don't Know Me", the latter two of which went number one on the Adult Contemporary chart. The hit singles quickly gained a significant amount of radio airplay on both country and R&B stations.^[By mid-May, the album's lead single, "I Can't Stop Loving You", had sold 700,000 copies within its first four weeks of release. Record dealers began describing the album as "equal in sales action to some of the early Presley disks" and, after moving 400,000 copies of the single, influential Atlanta record distributor Gwen Kestler told Billboard magazine that "the record is so hot in her district that people who don't even own record players are buying it." "I Can't Stop Loving You" hit number one on the Billboard Pop Singles chart on June 2, spending five consecutive weeks at the top of the chart. By the time it fell off the top, the single was reported to have reached nearly a million and a half in sales, moving over 100,000 copies per week. In July the record spent two weeks at number one in Great Britain

The fact that it said the sales were equal to Elvis's early recordings is fascinating to me.

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Originally Posted by MichaelSherry59

my question is this for anyone who were old enough then. How big of a deal was this era throughout Rays career from your experience between 1962-1963?

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I remember hearing two of the songs from Ray Charles' Modern Sounds In Country And Western Vol. 1, "I Can't Stop Loving You" & "You Don't Know Me", a lot on both the Pop & Soul Music stations back in 1962 & 63 so I'm not surprised that the LP made such a big impact. Ray was already an icon in the R&B world at the time and he was able to cross over to the C&W audience without losing his standing with the Soul audience. Also MSIC&W made an impression on Motown Records since it inspired The Supremes Sing Country, Western & Pop.

My Dad bought that album new. My Dad was a big country music fan & he played it for all his friends that came over. "I Can't Stop Loving You" was real big on Miami POP radio & all over the country.My Dad had liked Ray Charles hits like "Hit The Road Jack" but he really loved that country album.

Do you guys remember its "social impact" Modern Sounds in Country and Western had back in that era like Wikipedia stated?

Part 3:Social Impact

Following the album's release, Charles quickly earned an influx of white listeners and audiences at concert venues, without experiencing any fall-out from his predominantly black audience. Writer Daniel Cooper later said of the album's effect, "It's an idea as corny as any country song you can think of, and one that Charles knew to be true; music unites people. It just really does."Throughout the years following its initial reception, Modern Sounds gained further acknowledgment of its impact on the music industry and society. Through conceiving and recording the album, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to receive and practice artistic control bestowed upon by a mainstream record company. In a 1998 interview, country musician Raul Malo acknowledged the album's influence, calling it "one of the most important records of our time, not only because of its content, but also due to its social and political ramifications." In a July 8, 2004 article for Rolling Stone magazine, music journalist Robert Christgau praised the impact and influence that the Modern Sounds recordings had on music, stating "In the world it created, not only could a black person sing the American songbook Ella Fitzgerald owned by then, but a country black person could take it over. Soon Charles's down-home diction, cotton-field grit, corn-pone humor and overstated shows of emotion were standard operating procedure in American music, black and white.

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Originally Posted by MichaelSherry59

Do you guys remember its "social impact" Modern Sounds in Country and Western had back in that era like Wikipedia stated?

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I found out about the social impact that Ray Charles made with Modern Sounds In Country & Western Vol. 1 decades after it came out 1962. Indeed it was a landmark in Black Music History that Ray was able to accomplish what he did with that album [not to mention his deal with ABC Records that gave him the freedom to be able to do whatever Ray wanted to do with his music].