The High Priest Returns

      From High Fidelity Review comes notice of -- and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person at this site celebrating the prospect, but it's my blog, after all -- an August release of Ray Charles Duets. Here's the info:

Performing on the upcoming Duets album with Ray Charles will be Norah Jones, BB King, Willie Nelson, Michael McDonald, Bonnie Raitt, Billy Joel, Natalie Cole, Diana Krall and Van Morrison. Some of the songs on the album will be Here We Go Again with Norah Jones, Sinner’s Prayer with BB King, Hey Girl with Michael McDonald, Do I Ever Cross Your Mind with Bonnie Raitt and It Was A Very Good Year with Willie Nelson.

Not sure what to think of this, as there's a peculiar mix of the good, the bad and the ugly here. The good: Norah, B.B., Bonnie, Van. The Bad: Michael McDonald, Billy Joel, Natalie Cole. The Ugly: Diana "Crawl On Your Knees" and maybe Willie who can either be wonderful or abysmal by turns. The Van track, apparently, is Van's old Moondance chestnut "Crazy Love," not a personal favourite of mine but I can imagine what these two might do with it. The album, coincidentally enough, is schedule for release on 31 August-- five days after Doctor J turns (oy very, very vey) 31, and on Van The Man's 59th birthday. The great Ray's birthday isn't until September 23rd, although there's much debate as to the accuracy of that date-- and even of Ray's birth-year-- though the tendency is to agree that he will 74 this year. Now that's what I call a legend: still pumpin' and touring in your seventies. I wonder how many of our current crop of "musicians" will be doing the same in their seventies. My point exactly. Besides, I don't think any of us would be particularly enthused about watching the gyrations of geriatric Aguileras and other-such gynecologically-obsessed ingénues-- or, just as bad, the Backstreet Boys Reunion Tour, the lot of them looking like the cast of Cocoon cooked on crack. Mind you, I'd take a perverse pleasure in seeing Andre 3000 turn into Scatman Crothers. No, no, I would never wish that on the Scatman.