Ray Charles – "I Don't Need No Doctor" (1966)

I don't need no doctor

'Cause I know what's ailing me

(Apologies to all you English teachers for that double negative!)

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Portraits of 30-odd prominent Harvard Medical School doctors once adorned the walls of the amphitheater at Harvard’s current teaching hospital.  But those portraits – all but one of which depict white males – are being taken.  

Gone but not forgotten!

That's because hospital’s president, the aforementioned Dr. Betsy Nabel, didn’t like what she saw on the faces of minority students who came into that amphitheater for lectures.

“I have watched them look at the walls.  I read on their faces, ‘Interesting. But I am not represented here.’  That got me thinking,” she told a Boston Globe reporter recently.

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Among the many notable doctors whose portraits are being removed on Dr. Nabel’s orders was Dr. Harvey Cushing (1869-1939), the “Father of Neurosurgery.”  

Dr. Harvey Cushing

Dr. Cushing invented many of the surgical techniques for operating on the brain that are still used today.  He was the surgeon-in-chief at Harvard Medical School’s teaching hospital for many years, and was decorated by both the American and British governments for his groundbreaking work in the treatment of brain injuries suffered by World War I soldiers.

That's all well and good, Dr. Cushing, but you were a white male.  Hit the road, Harvey, and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more!

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We’ve been busy knocking down statues of Confederate generals and other slaveholders recently.

As far as I know, none of the distinguished Harvard Medical School doctors whose portraits are being removed were slaveholders or white supremacists.  

Dr. Nabel and her white male husband
(who'd better watch his back!)

None of them have been accused of sexually harassing female nurses, and I have it on good authority that none of them voted for Trump. 

But it cannot be denied that when it comes to being white males, they are guilty as charged.

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Penalizing someone on the basis of their race is racial discrimination – regardless of which race you're discriminating against.

Harvard is guilty of discriminating against Asian applicants for admission, just as it was once guilty of discriminating Jewish applicants.  So Dr. Nabel’s action should come as no great surprise. 

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“I Don’t Need No Doctor” was written by Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson, and Jo Armstead.  (Ashford and Simpson were songwriters and producers who worked with Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson, and many other Motown artists.)

Ashford recorded the song a couple of months before Ray Charles, but his version didn’t make a dent on the charts.

Others who have covered “I Don’t Need No Doctor” include Humble Pie, Styx, John Mayer, and Joan Osborne.

Click here to listen to the Ray Charles cover of “I Don’t Need No Doctor.”  

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon.

Ray Charles – "It Should've Been Me" (1954)

It should have been me

Eating ice cream and cake

"It Should've Been Me," which was released in 1954, was one of Ray Charles' earliest hit singles.  

I only became acquainted with the Ray Charles version of that song recently.  The version of the song I knew prior to that was Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen's cover, which was released on the group's second album, Hot Licks, Cold Steel & Truckers' Favorites, in 1972:

In the first verse of "It Should've Been Me," the singer sees a swell-looking chick walking out of a fine hotel.  He's about to try out a line on her when a Cadillac cruises up.  The woman gets into the Cadillac and drives away, leaving the singer to lament that:

It should have been me with that real fine chick
It should have been me driven' that Cadillac

1954 Cadillac

He runs into a couple of other fabulous babes, but both of them are with other guys.  Sorry, Charley!

Finally, our luckless singer does what he should have done in the first place – instead of chasing everything he sees that's wearing a skirt, he decides to drop by a fine café and tie on the feedbag.

After all, women are fickle – even when you talk one into staying with you for a while, she's going to try to tell you what to do.  

But a big-ass scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of a good-sized slice of chocolate cake (with chocolate icing, of course) will never let you down.  

Of course, if your ice cream and cake doesn't satisfy your hunger, you can always try to hook up with the waitress.

Speaking of hooking up, Ray Charles had twelve children with ten different women.  The oldest was born in 1949, and the youngest was born in 1987.  (Imagine having a half-brother who is 38 years older than you are.)  

Ray had no children with his first wife, but that marriage didn't last long, so you can't really blame him.  He had three children with his second wife.    

Of his remaining nine children – with nine different mothers – five were born while he was still married to wife number two.  (Awkward!) 

Ray really hit his stride in 1958, the year he turned 28.  He had babies born in 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1963, 1966, and 1966 – that's six mothers and seven babies in eight years.

(No wonder he's happy!)

Charles sang "It should've been me with that real fine chick," but it sounds like there was no "should've" when it came to Ray Charles being with real fine chicks . . . over, and over, and over again.

"It Should've Been Me" was written by Memphis Edward "Eddie" Curtis, Jr.  Curtis is credited as being a co-author of "The Joker," which became a #1 hit single for Steve Miller in early 1974.  That's because "The Joker" borrowed some lyrics from his song, "Lovey Dovey, which was a 1954 hit for the Clovers.

Here's the verse from "Lovey Dovey" that inspired Steve Miller:

I said you're the cutest thing that I've ever seen

I really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree

Lovey dovey, lovey dovey all the time

Said lovey dovey, I can't get you out of my mind

As you Steve Miller fans know, "The Joker" contains almost exactly the same lyrics.  

(Did you notice the grammatical error in this post?  It's actually not an error, but most of you self-appointed grammar Nazis out there are going to think it is.)  

Here's "It Should've Been Me":

Click below to order the song from Amazon: