Ray Charles "The Genius of Ray Charles" [1959]

Yeah, some genius -- hiring Frank Sinatra's horn section and faking his way through a bunch of worn-out covers doesn't exactly require much brain power at all, aside from resisting the temptation from the brass blasts at the top of each number to sing a rendition of "Meet the Flintstones." Besides, kowtowing to the ramping consumerist society of the Mad Men era was like shooting fish in a barrel; if Ray Charles were a true genius, he might have made people think twice before engaging in 3-martini lunches and tawdry affairs with their bimbo secretaries. Maybe we wouldn't have been caught napping when the government sent everyone's boys off to Vietnam, thus causing a hideous counter-movement of drug ingestion and lame, hairy young-person protest better known today as the hippie era. A little responsibility would've gone a long way, and it doesn't matter that Ray Charles was blind -- he'd still rather have hung at the Playboy Mansion than perform any worthwhile acts on behalf of society in general or black people in particular. Basically, Charles provided the bridge of black musician sell-outedness between Sammy Davis Jr and Motown, eventually manifesting itself in the existence of Hootie & the Blowfish and Wayne Brady. See, white folks? Black folks ain't so frightening, just so long as you're not part of fascist task-master Charles' traveling band. Besides, I'd like to see what kind of a genius he'd be if someone kept moving his electric piano around while he was trying to play it.