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The Beatles Cover of the Day – “Eleanor Rigby”- Ray Charles. Over the weekend I featured Ray Charles version of “Yesterday” as my first entry in the series of great Beatles covers. He didn’t follow The Beatles original- giving his own take on it to perfection- and he does the same here with The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby.” The Beatles original is great one of my favorites and I am not claiming Ray Charles tops them with his version but it is equally as great. The key being Ray’s version being different from the original, a genius. Ray was an original. “Eleanor Rigby” by Ray Charles was released in 1968 and made it to #35 on the Hot 100. It’s too bad he didn’t do an album of Beatles covers.
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I’ve heard this before and I love it. Ray Charles infuses an already mournful song with even more. I echo your feelings in that it stands on its own without competing with The Beatles version. Good choice, Hans.
You hear some versions of covers- where they just do the exact note for note sound of the original- Ray is one of those artists who would do it his way- which makes it a lot more interesting. Thanks .
I’m better today. I didn’t shiver or tear up during this song (like during Ray’s Yesterday or Brown’s Something, lol! )
But this one’s amazing, too! What a voice. What feeling. Wow.
Ray Charles was such a great artist, and I’ve yet to hear a tune from him that sucks. I dig the original, in part because of George Martin’s brilliant string arrangement. This cover adds a beautiful dose of soul to the song.
I think Ray was incapable of doing anything bad. I was reading recently how The Beatles when they backed Tony Sheridan on My Bonnie- really didn’t like the song- or think it was something that they should do BUT- Ray Charles covered it so if Ray could do it- so could they.