I was reading something, somewhere, recently about the way that gospel audiences were appalled by what they saw as the sexual nature of Ray Charles’ vocals in early releases; it was a strange moment for me, because I came to Charles at the end of his career where the innuendo one grunt could have was nothing compared with the tales the man had built up around himself, but listening to this early single, it make a bit more sense. “Ain’t That Love,” after all, has a very gospel structure with the call-and-response to it, something really emphasized by the tambourine, oddly enough. You listen to this and you can imagine a younger Charles singing songs of devotion amongst the faithful and raising spirits as well as temperatures with each note.
(I love the chasteness of this song, too; “Oh, when you walk/I wanna walk with you” Charles says, asking “Ain’t that love?” and it is, albeit a particularly innocent, amusingly desexual idea of it.)