Friendship (Ray Charles album)

Friendship was first released in August 1984 by Columbia Records and Epic Records. It reached the number-one position on the Billboards Top Country Albums and remained on the chart for 70 weeks. According to Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the album was "a big hit, really the last genuine hit when Charles was alive", as well as "the pinnacle of his '80s country-pop records, the one where Ray truly captured the sound of the era". In 2005, Friendship was reissued again by Columbia in partnership with Legacy Recordings. In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Erlewine judged the album's best moments to be "merely pleasant; at its worst, it's simply dull" and "more of a testament to the power of Sherrill's Music City machine than it is to Charles' greatness." Robert Christgau was more enthusiastic reviewing the album's 2005 reissue, saying the duet concept worked "pretty darn good on the only memorable album of his Nashville foray". He cited "We Didn't See a Thing" as a highlight of both Charles and George Jones' late-period recordings and also applauded the two bonus songs, despite their deviation from the original album's stylistic concept. ==Track listing==