It was hidden in a New York storage facility. The previously unknown version of ‘Why Me, Lord?”, sang by Johnny Cash and Ray Charles remained unreleased for years, waiting to be found amidst the clutter.
The hit song “Why Me, Lord?” was recorded by the two men in 1981, after Kris Kristofferson made it famous. Billy Sherrill was the producer. In December of that year, a letter was written to Charles from Cash which read, “I hope you like this tape. I realize that the orchestration isn’t big and I don’t sing very good, but I think the thing has a feeling and a quality that the fans would really enjoy.”
President of the Ray Charles Foundation Valerie Ervin found two letter written from Cash to Charles while she was going through the archives at the Ray Charles Memorial Library earlier this year. At that time, they did not know what had happened to the song. Up until then, the only song which these two men had done together was ‘Crazy Old Soldier’.
The duet has now been released on a collection of Charles’ songs called ‘Rare Genius’ released just Tuesday.
THAINDIAN
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