Ray Charles improvised "What'd I Say" one night in 1958 when his set ran 11 minutes too short and he needed something to fill the time. The response was so enthusiastic that he made it a regular number, recording and releasing it the next year. It became a crossover hit and his first gold record, despite creating a controversy with some people in both white and African-American audiences. The former objected to the overt sexuality and the latter to its adaptation of gospel riffs. Charles continued performing it, of course, usually using it to close his last set of the night.
The original recording was over seven minutes long, which exceeded the maximum length for radio play. The solution at Atlantic Records was to divide it into two parts and release the A side as part one and the B side as part two. The live video clips of Ray Charles all seem to be about four minutes, including the 1959 clip at the bottom of this post; most others are shorter.
Don't miss the cameo by Barack Obama in the Usher clip. Cannot imagine either Trump or Biden getting into it like that.
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