Hit the Road Jack — Ray Charles (1961)

Why this song

Somebody is being thrown out, and he barely gets a word in. He sings a line; the backing singers answer. Count how many lines each side gets before the song ends.

That is the first thing to notice, because the chords are doing the same thing as the argument. They go down, down, down, and then they drop you back at the top to fall again. Nobody wins, and nothing settles.

Stand by Me, from the same year, is also built on four chords. That turn lifts you. This one drops you.

Historical context

Ray Charles recorded it in June 1961 and ABC-Paramount released it in August, with "The Danger Zone" on the B-side. Sid Feller produced it. On 9 October it reached number one in the United States and stayed two weeks; on the R&B chart it held for five.

The song was not his, though. Percy Mayfield wrote it — a rhythm and blues singer — and recorded it first, in 1960, as an a cappella demo: his voice alone, with no instrument behind it. He sent it like that to Art Rupe, a record executive. Everything you recognise today — the piano, the horns, the singers — was added afterwards.

Concierto nocturno de Ray Charles en el RAI de Ámsterdam, 11 de mayo de 1963. Foto: Hugo van Gelderen / Anefo, CC0, vía Wikimedia Commons

Look behind Ray Charles in the photo: a full orchestra, with music stands and a horn section. In 1961 a record like this was not made by four friends in a rehearsal room. It was made by a payroll of musicians and a producer deciding who comes in and when.

Musical characteristics

Pick up an instrument and play four notes in a row: A, G, F, E. You go down four times, and each time you land on the note next door, never skipping one. That is exactly what the bass does for the whole two minutes.

On top of each of those notes there is a chord: Am – G – F – E. Moving like that, to the chord next door with no jumps, is called moving by step. And a string of chords one after another is a progression.

This particular progression is old, and it is Spanish. Flamenco plays it constantly and calls it playing por arriba: Am, G, F, E, the same four. Its name in the books is the Andalusian cadence.

There is no record of Ray Charles taking it from flamenco, and he probably never knew the name existed. The staircase is simple enough to turn up on its own in musics that have never met.

El guitarrista Josemi Carmona. Foto: Rai Fernandes Foto, CC BY 3.0, vía Wikimedia Commons

One detail explains the rest. The last chord, E, is major, even though the song is in A minor. To make it major you need a G sharp, and that G sharp does not belong to the A minor scale: it is a visitor. That outside note pulls towards A harder than any other, so the turn never finishes — it pushes you back to the start. That pulling note is the leading note.

The other half of the song is not in the chords, it is in the casting. Ray Charles sings a line. The backing singers answer with another. They never sing together: first one, then the others, like an argument where each side waits its turn. That is call and response.

And the voice answering is not filler. It is Margie Hendrix, one of the Raelettes, Ray Charles's backing group. Listen to which of the two sounds more certain.

Hard facts: A minor, 4/4, about 171 BPM, 2:00.

Trivia and curiosities

• The first version had no instruments at all. Percy Mayfield recorded it singing alone, a cappella, to show it to a record executive. A song exists before its arrangement: what gets written are the notes and the words, not the sound of the record.

• The person who wrote it and the person who sang it are not the same, and the one who gets the credit is the second. When you look up who made a song, the cover rarely tells you the whole story.

• The same four descending notes hold up the Lamento della Ninfa Monteverdi published in 1638, three centuries earlier, and they are the ones flamenco plays por arriba. A progression has no nationality and no date: it turns up in places that had never heard of each other, and almost always underneath somebody lamenting.

• The song got an answer on another record. A group called The Chantels released "Well, I Told You" replying to it, and it reached number 29. The call and response walked out of the studio and carried on in the shops.

• It lasts two minutes. In that time there is no new chorus, no change of key, no bridge: the same four chords from start to finish. Everything that happens, happens in the voices.

Classroom activities

• Play: the full turn, two beats per chord. On ukulele, Am – G – F – E; the bass plays only the four notes A, G, F, E, going down. Start at half speed and work up to 170 with the metronome.

• Split the class in two: half do the call, half do the response. Never together. Swap roles on the second time round, so everyone does both jobs.

• Analyse: a closed question. Of the four chords, which one contains a note that is not in the A minor scale? Find it by playing the scale and comparing, then say what that note does to your ear when the first chord comes back.

• Create: four chords of your own going down by step from a different note, for example Em – D – C – B. Over them, one line of call and one of response. You copy the procedure, not the song.

Key vocabulary

• Step (moving by step) — grados conjuntos: pasar a la nota o al acorde de al lado, sin saltar
• Progression — progresión: serie de acordes encadenados que se repite
• Andalusian cadence — cadencia andaluza: Lam – Sol – Fa – Mi, la vuelta que el flamenco toca por arriba
• Leading note — sensible: la nota que tira hacia el primer acorde
• Call and response — llamada y respuesta

Resources

In the theory and history book — these four chords fit ¿Cuándo empieza una melodía a decir de dónde eres?, because they belong to Andalusia and to Los Angeles at the same time; and the song works as an example in ¿Cómo sabes por dónde vas en una música que oyes por primera vez?, where what orients you is not the harmony but who is singing.

Official video

Ukulele tutorial — The Ukulele Teacher, easy version with the four chords.

Bass tutorial — BassLicks, beginner lesson. This is the line that goes down.

Guitar tutorial — Jon MacLennan, a complete free lesson.

Drums: full transcription — Jazz Drummer's Corner. Not a step-by-step lesson: it is the score scrolling on screen while the track plays, so you can copy the pattern.

• Tab — https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/ray-charles-hit-the-road-jack-tab-s51622