Ray Charles, which collection go get?

What about the "Complete Country and Western Recordings" box? What is this set like? Quality recordings?

Try the Rhino box set "Blues+Jazz". It highlights his piano playing.

actually the set Sdcampbell brought up is a 3 cd set. I own both sets mentioned in this post and find that I play the discs from the atlantic set with much greater frequency.

you can probably find both reasonably priced on ebay.

If you are interested in Ray's early (and probably best) years, you should also check out a 2-CD boxed set from Atlantic Records titled "Ray Charles: The Birth of Soul" (Atlantic 782310-2). The boxed set contains Ray's releases from 1952-1959, and comes with a nice booklet that has a biography of Ray, plus a discography.

My favorite is "Genius & Soul: 50th Anniversary Collection". It was recommended by others in this forum. I bought it and was pleased with the breadth of the songs and the production quality.

Long live the music of Brother Ray.