In a way, the soundtrack to the film Ray is kind of a no-brainer. It is, essentially, a greatest hits package. The key, then, lies in the narrative. How do you use those songs to tell a story? In the case of the Ray soundtrack, the answer is "pretty well."

With the exception of the song "What'd I Say," which opens the film, it's a good hour before the movie gets to any of the songs on the soundtrack. That's not to say it's a silent sixty minutes. There's actually enough music in the film to fill a box set. But, appropriately enough, the first tune on the soundtrack is the first Ray Charles tune to be released by Atlantic Records, with whom Ray hooks up in the early Fifties.

The song, "Mess Around," marks the first milestone in a decades-long career. Up until this point, Ray had been making his bones imitating (almost perfectly) contemporaries such as Nat King Cole . "Mess Around" is Atlantic impresario Ahmet Ertegun's attempt to help Ray find his own sound. Ahmet, in fact, wrote the song and hearing Curtis Armstrong (a.k.a. "Booger" from the Revenge of the Nerds saga) attempt to sing it for Ray is one of the rare delights sadly omitted from the soundtrack.

Ray continues to find his own sound with "I've Got a Woman," mixing gospel and R&B in a way that dismays Della Bea, his bride-to-be and the very woman for whom he writes the number. "Hallelujah I Love Her So," continues to blur the line between secular and spiritual, and in the film it spurs dissent from a couple pious, but rowdy, audience members.

The movie's songs often chronicle Ray's love life. "Drown in My Own Tears" plays as Ray cheats on his wife for the first (and certainly not the last) time with new backup singer Mary Ann Fisher. It seems he isn't trying too hard to hide this given that the very next song is called "Mary Ann."

In it's own way, "(Night Time Is) the Right Time" continues the tale of Ray's extra-marital affairs. Regina King plays Margie Hendricks, a back-up singer with whom he has a long-term love affair. She sings the "Baaaby!" which helps make the tune so memorable (especially if you've seen the episode of The Cosby Show where the whole family lip-syncs it). She's also the inspiration for the classic "Hit the Road Jack," spurred on by her frustration with Ray, who refuses to father their child.

Some songs in the film chart Ray's progression in the industry. "What'd I Say" comes up again, initially as a jam Ray improvises when his band runs out of numbers at a gig. It becomes a chart-jumping sensation that marks one of the seminal moments in any black artist's career when white people start dancing to their music. This is shown in a Beach Blanket Bingo style montage where folks on the beach get their groove on.

Ray moves to ABC Records for a fatter contract and, miraculously, control of his master tapes to produce "Georgia On My Mind," a lush orchestral number that gets some pundits to claim that he's sold out. He contends that the whole thing was his idea, a notion backed up by the fact that one of his next steps is even more out of character for what people had come to expect. He goes country. As the film shows early on when he gets a stint as a country-western pianist, the music had been with him his whole life. It's the "great stories" that he says draws him to the sound. The soundtrack offers two of these stories, "I Can't Stop Loving You," and "Born to Lose."

"Unchain My Heart," scores the theme of race, as Ray becomes the first artist to boycott segregated concerts. His drug addiction, a more prevalent motif, ties in here as it makes him an easy mark for racist police and FBI offended by the cultural change his music is instigating. "You Don't Know Me," the centerpiece of the soundtrack and, in many ways, of the whole film, plays as Ray is brought in for heroin possession and smuggling. The song, as haunting a track as any he ever created, underscores the central theme of the movie, Ray's search to know himself, which sometimes comes off a little more coherently than others.

One of the things that makes Ray's music unique is the way in which he's able to infuse even the most melancholy of numbers with the pure joy of performance. The irony of this is never more punctuated than in "Bye Bye Love," which is, in many ways, a suicide note, but is played here like the happiest ditty imaginable. In the film it scores Ray's rise into superstardom as he gets to know Joe Adams, a radio personality turned announcer who becomes his business manager, ousting his former, embittered manager, Jeff Brown. It's a bittersweet song for a bittersweet ascent. (The only version to wring even more irony out of this song is probably Ben Vereen 's from All That Jazz , but that was Bob Fosse's baby, and he's all about the dark underbelly of show biz).

Ultimately Ray the film is, at times, a bit too melodramatic for its own good, a flaw never seen in Ray the soundtrack (with the possible exception of "Born to Lose," which lays the choral harmonies on a bit too thick for my tastes). Regardless, I've never seen a movie where I've spent more time tapping my feet in the aisle.