“I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles perfectly illustrates the way Charles transformed the sacred into the secular. He heard the Southern Tones’ gospel tune “It Must Be Jesus” (a 1954 Duke Records release) on a car radio, and when he went into the studio in Atlanta on November 18, 1954, he kept the music but changed the words, exemplifying a common assertion that the thin musical line between gospel and blues often lies only in the lyrics. “I Got a Woman” became his first No. 1 R&B hit and remains one of the iconic works in the annals of Rhythm & Blues.
