16. Robert Lashley, "Why Ray Charles Matters," Blogcritics Magazine, December 17, 2005, http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/17/032826.php:
But it was the staggering, nearly byzantine ambition that encompassed Charles' musical mind which is the foundation for his art. You can hear it in his first imprint on the pop music world, 1955's I Got A Woman. The shuffling big beat borrows from Louis Jordan's big band fusion, the backbeat is 2/4 gospel. The arrangement is lucid, not quite jazz, not quite blues, definitely not rock and roll but something sophisticated altogether. The emotions are feral, but not quite the primitiveness of rock and roll. It is the sound of life, a place where there is an ever flowing river of cool. It, you might ask? Rhythm and Blues, Ray Charles' invention.
A volcano bubbling under the surface, Ray spent the mid 50's crafting timeless songs as if there were cars on an assembly[.] Start with the blasphemous fusion of Hallelujah I [L]ove Her So and This Little Girl of Mine, where Ray changes the words from loving god to loving a woman, yet, in the intensity of his performance, raises the question if he's still loving the same thing.
The anonymous encyclopedists at Wikipedia agree:
Many of the most prominent soul artists, such as Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett and Al Green, had roots in the church and gospel music and brought with them much of the vocal styles of artists such as Clara Ward and Julius Cheeks. Secular songwriters often appropriated gospel songs, such as the Pilgrim Travelers' song "I've Got A New Home," which Ray Charles turned into "Lonely Avenue," or "Stand By Me," which Ben E. King and Lieber and Stoller adapted from a well-known gospel song, or Marvin Gaye's "Can I Get A Witness," which reworks traditional gospel catchphrases. In other cases secular musicians did the opposite, attaching phrases and titles from the gospel tradition to secular songs to create soul hits such as "Come See About Me" for the Supremes and "991?2Won't Do" for Wilson Pickett.
"Urban Contemporary Gospel," Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/urban_contemporary_gospel.
17. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957), 96-97.
18. John Leland, "Art Born of Outrage in the Internet Age," New York Times (September 25, 2005), D3.
19. Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc., 780 F. Supp. 182 (S.D.N.Y. 1991).
20. Ibid., 183.