When John Lennon admitted two Beatles’ songs were inspired by Ray Charles’ ‘What I’d Say’

In a 1974 interview with WNEW’s Dennis Elsas, late Hollywood singer John Lennon, who was the lead vocalist of the Beatles, spoke about how Ray Charles inspired The Beatles’ music. John Lennon mentioned that The Beatles’ lead guitarist, Bobby Parker’s Watch Your Step is a direct descendant of Ray Charles’ What’d I Say. Ray Charles, popularly known as Brother Ray, was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and a composer.

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'Watch Your Step' is the ‘son’ of 'What I’d Say'

More so, John Lennon also mentioned that the 1964 chartbuster song, I Feel Fine was inspired by Ray Charles’ ground-breaking 1959 track via Parker. In his interview, John Lennon mentioned that Watch Your Step is one of his most favourite songs and had brought it along to WNEW studio to play for the audience. Adding to the same, he also mentioned that Watch Your Step is the ‘son’ of What I’d Say.

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What I’d Say:

John Lennon

John Lennon was an  English singer, songwriter, and peace activist, who had a record of 25 number one singles in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. More so, in 2008,  Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. If the reports are to be believed, John Lennon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1994. In the year 1965, John was appointed as the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) with the other Beatles members. The singer was assassinated in 1980.

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Ray Charles’ career

In his career in the 50s, Ray Charles championed the soul music genre by combining jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into his music. In the year 1960, Ray Charles delivered his first hit song, Georgia On My Mind, which was among the singer’s first songs to make a place in the Billboard Hot 100. Charles was a 17-time Grammy Award winner and was honoured with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987.

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More so, Ray Charles’ 10 recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Rolling stone, in 2002, ranked the singer at the 10th position on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2008, the singer grabbed the second position on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

(Image credits: A screengrab from YouTube Channel GoThere)