He speaks and even seems to think with a stammerbut the halt is strangely touching. In song, his voice quavers and breaks, but then he catches it, and it rises to a shriek that ends on a cheerless blue note. He rocks in rhythm across the keyboard of his piano, but he seems not so much mannered as he is possessed. He is a blind Negro, haunted by narcotics; yet when he sings a song that makes him stammer, shriek and rock, Ray Charles is the best blues singer around.
The Message. At a couple of standing-room-only Carnegie Hall...
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