What'd I Say

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Lore & Background

Ray Charles was 28 years old in 1958, with 10 years of experience recording primarily rhythm and blues music. He signed with Atlantic Records in 1952 where producers Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler encouraged him to broaden his repertoire. During Charles's heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, he toured for 300 days a year with a seven-piece orchestra. He employed another Atlantic singing trio named the Cookies and renamed them the Raelettes when they backed him up on the road. In 1954, Charles began merging gospel sounds and instruments with lyrics that addressed more secular issues; his first attempt was in the song "I Got a Woman." In December 1958, he had a hit on the R&B charts with "Night Time Is the Right Time," an ode to carnality sung between Charles and one of the Raelettes, Margie Hendricks, with whom Charles was having an affair. Since 1956, Charles had also included a Wurlitzer electric piano on tour because he did not trust the tuning and quality of the pianos provided to him at every venue. According to Charles's autobiography, "What'd I Say" was accidental when he improvised it to fill time at the end of a concert in December 1958. He told the Raelettes, "Listen, I'm going to fool around and y'all just follow me." Starting on the electric piano, Charles played what felt right: a series of riffs, switching then to a regular piano for four choruses backed up by a unique Latin conga tumbao rhythm on drums. The song changed when Charles began singing simple, improvised unconnected verses. In the middle of the song, Charles indicated that the Raelettes should repeat what he was doing, and the song transformed into a call and response between Charles, the Raelettes, and the horn section. The audience reacted immediately; Charles could feel the room shaking and bouncing as the crowd was dancing. Many audience members approached Charles at the end of the show to ask where they could purchase the record. He called Jerry Wexler to say he had something new to record, later writing, "I don't believe in giving myself advance notices, but I figured this song merited it." On February 18, 1959, Charles and his orchestra finally recorded "What'd I Say" at Atlantic's small studio. Recording engineer Tom Dowd recalled that it did not seem special at the time of recording: "We made it like we made all the others. Ray, the gals, and the band live in the small studio, no overdubs. Three or four takes, and it was done. Next!" The song was recorded in only a few takes because Charles and the orchestra had perfected it while touring. Dowd had two problems during the recording: "What'd I Say" lasted over seven and a half minutes when the normal length of radio-played songs was around two and a half minutes, and the sounds Charles and the Raelettes made in their calls and responses worried Dowd and the producers. Dowd solved the recording issues by mixing three versions of the song. Some call-outs of "Shake that thing!" were removed, and the song was split into two three-and-a-half minute sides of a single record, titling the song "What'd I Say Part I" and "What'd I Say Part II." It was held for the summer and released in June 1959.

Reader's Guide

"What'd I Say" is significant as one of the first soul songs, combining gospel and rhumba influences with sexual innuendo. It earned Ray Charles his first gold record and has been one of the most influential songs in R&B and rock and roll history. For the rest of his career, Charles closed every concert with the song. It was added to the National Recording Registry in 2002 and appeared in Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list at number 10 in 2003 and number 80 in 2021. The song's controversy—radio stations refused to play it due to its sexual charge—did not prevent its commercial success. Billboard magazine initially gave "What'd I Say" a tepid review: "He shouts out in percussive style ... Side two is the same." The secretary at Atlantic Records started getting calls from distributors, however. Radio stations refused to play it because it was too sexually charged, but Atlantic refused to take the records back from stores. A slightly sanitized version was released in July 1959 in response to the complaints, and the song hit number 82. A week later it was at 43, then 26. In contrast to their earlier review, Billboard several weeks later wrote that the song was "the strongest pop record that the artist has done to date." Within weeks "What'd I Say" topped out at number one on Billboard's R&B singles chart, number six on the Billboard Hot 100. "What'd I Say" was Ray Charles's first gold record. It also became Atlantic Records' best-selling song at the time. "What'd I Say" was banned by many black and white radio stations because of, as one critic noted, "the dialogue between himself and his backing singers that started in church and ended up in the bedroom." The erotic nature was obvious to listeners, but a deeper aspect of the fusion between black gospel music and R&B troubled many black audiences. Music, as was much of American society, was also segregated, and some critics complained that gospel was not only being appropriated by secular musicians, but it was being marketed to white listeners.

Did You Know?

• The song was improvised one evening late in 1958 when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their entire set list at a show and still had time left.
• Recording engineer Tom Dowd recalled that the song did not seem special at the time of recording: 'We made it like we made all the others. Ray, the gals, and the band live in the small studio, no overdubs. Three or four takes, and it was done. Next!'
• The song was split into two parts because it lasted over seven and a half minutes, while the normal length of radio-played songs was around two and a half minutes.
• A slightly sanitized version was released in July 1959 in response to complaints about the song's sexual charge.
• It became Atlantic Records' best-selling song at the time.