“What'd I Say” by Ray Charles

"What'd I Say" was born on a bandstand. One night late in 1958, Ray Charles, his orchestra and his backup singers ran out of set list with time still on the clock, so he made something up on the spot, and audiences went so wild for it that he told his producer he was cutting it. Released in June 1959 as a single split into two parts, it has Charles on keyboard and vocals, David "Fathead" Newman and Hank Crawford on saxophones, Edgar Willis on double bass and Milt Turner on drums, with Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler producing.

It pulled together everything he'd been building since "I Got a Woman" in 1954: gospel fire, a rhumba sway and enough innuendo to make it a smash and a scandal. One of the first soul records, it was his first gold record and his way into mainstream pop, and he closed every concert with it from then on.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.