"(Night Time Is) The Right Time" (1959) is a smokin' blues that exists in its own special realm, somewhere between rock & roll and R&B. It's inextricably equal parts Sunday go-to-meeting and Friday night juke & gin: Charles plays a funky little groove on his Wurlitzer electric piano as he extols the virtues of being with your honey at night while his backing singers, The Raelettes, take it to church behind him.
(And contrary to what all of the crappy online lyrics-finder sites might have you believe, they are not singing night and day-o or night or day, oh; they are singing wah-do-day / wah-do-day-doe.)
And not to knock Brother Ray, but when vocalist Margie Hendrix (née Marjorie Hendricks) suddenly enters stage left and begins to wail, she owns this song. When she sings bay-bay!!! I'm never sure whether I should praise the Almighty or light up a Marlboro. Or both.
As much as this song is associated with Charles, I should point out that the song is actually a cover of "The Right Time" by the late Nappy Brown (née Napoleon Brown Culp), who hailed from Charlotte, NC. Back when I was living in Charlotte and still doing some occasional work for Charlotte magazine in the 2000s, I recall one of the magazine's frequent contributors writing a piece about Brown. I'd had no clue--as I'm sure was the case for most readers--who Brown was or that he had recorded the original version of this song in 1957 with a slightly slower, but almost note-for-note identical, arrangement.
Brown was quoted in the article as saying he was never upset that his own version was largely overlooked and Charles's version was a success.
"'It felt good that he had covered it. That still was good for me,' he says with a sly wink and a jingle of his pocket, signifying the royalties he's received."
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