Charles's 1961 album Dedicated to You was his second album after he switched record labels from Atlantic to ABC. The album is comprised of twelve songs, generally ballads, that are essentially love letters to women of various names. Charles is backed by an orchestra, which often gives the songs a jazzy or big band feel. The album reached #11 on the Billboard album chart, and two songs on the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100, with "Ruby" going to #28 (as well as #10 on the Billboard R&B chart -- his 20th Top 10 hit on that chart) and "Hardhearted Hannah" going to #55.
Of course, Charles would go on to continue to make music pretty regularly until his death in 2004, releasing dozens of albums. He had albums hit #1 on both the regular Billboard album chart and the Billboard Country album chart. He had #1 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, the Billboard R&B chart, the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, the Billboard Country singles chart, the Canadian pop chart, and the UK pop chart. He had 33 Top 40 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 (or its predecessors), including 11 that reached the Top 10 and 3 #1s. Over 50 of his songs reached the Top 10 of the Billboard R&B charts, including 12 #1s. Finally, on the Billboard Country singles chart, he had 8 Top 40 hits, including 2 in the Top 10 and one #1.
Favorite song from Side 1: "Margie"
While most of the songs are kind of slow and serene, this one is more uptempo, and Charles sings with a little more enthusiasm on this song than on some of the others.
Favorite song from Side 2: "Josephine"
Josephine is the name of one of my long-dead great aunts. Sorry, great aunts Cherry, Candy, Marie, Diane, and Georgia!
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