MY BACK PAGES

Back in the mid-1960s, I was the unusual white, suburban preteen who, for reasons I’ve long pondered and never fully understood, was drawn much less powerfully to the Beatles than to blues and R&B. I was a bit of a jazz snob, too. Given these leanings, it’s no surprise that one of the half-dozen or so albums that fried my impressionable young brain was that seamless blend of blues, R&B, and jazz, Ray Charles at Newport.

Though it was cut on July 5, 1958, at the still-new jazz festival, for some reason