What'd I Say - Composition and Recording

Composition and Recording

According to Charles' autobiography, "What'd I Say" was accidental when he improvised it to fill time at the end of a concert in December 1958. He asserts that he never tested songs on audiences before recording them, but "What'd I Say" is an exception. Charles himself does not recall where the concert took place, but Mike Evans in Ray Charles: The Birth of Soul places the show in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. Shows were played at "meal dances" which typically ran four hours with a half hour break, and would end around 1 or 2 in the morning. Charles and his orchestra had exhausted their set list after midnight, but had 12 minutes left to fill. 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 ("Hey Mama don't you treat me wrong / Come and love your daddy all night long / All right now / Hey hey / All right"). Charles used gospel elements in a twelve-bar blues structure. Some of the first lines ("See the gal with the red dress on / She can do the Birdland all night long") are influenced by a boogie-woogie style that Ahmet Ertegun attributes to Clarence "Pinetop" Smith who used to call out to dancers on the dance floor instructing what to do through his lyrics. In the middle of the song, however, 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 in the orchestra as they called out to each other in ecstatic shouts and moans and blasts from the horns.

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. Charles and the orchestra performed it again several nights in a row with the same reaction at each show. 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".

I'm not one to interpret my own songs, but if you can't figure out 'What I Say', then something's wrong. Either that, or you're not accustomed to the sweet sounds of love.

The Atlantic Records studio had just purchased an 8-track recorder, and recording engineer Tom Dowd was familiarizing himself with how it worked. In February 1959 Charles and his orchestra finally recorded "What'd I Say" at Atlantic's small studio. Dowd recalled that it did not seem special at the time of recording. It was second of two songs during the session and Charles, the producers, and the band were more impressed with the first one at the session, "Tell the Truth": "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!" In retrospect, Ahmet Ertegun's brother Nesuhi credits the extraordinary sound of the song to the restricted size of the studio and the technologically advanced recording equipment used; the sound quality is clear enough to hear Charles slapping his leg in time with the song when the music stops during the calls and responses. The song was recorded in only a few takes because Charles and the orchestra had perfected it while touring.

Dowd, however, 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. Furthermore, although the lyrics were not obscene, the sounds Charles and the Raelettes made in their calls and responses during the song worried Dowd and the producers. A previous recording called "Money Honey" by Clyde McPhatter had been banned in Georgia and Ahmet Ertegun and Wexler released McPhatter's song despite the ban, risking arrest. Ray Charles was aware of the controversy in "What'd I Say": "I'm not one to interpret my own songs, but if you can't figure out 'What I Say', then something's wrong. Either that, or you're not accustomed to the sweet sounds of love."

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". The recorded version divides the parts with a false ending where the orchestra stops and the Raelettes and orchestra members beg Charles to continue, then goes on to a frenzied finale. Dowd later stated after hearing the final recording that not releasing the record was never an option: "we knew it was going to be a hit record, no question." It was held for the summer and released in June 1959.