Which 1962 Ray Charles album paired country songs with soul arrangements?

The 1962 Ray Charles album that paired country songs with soul arrangements is Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music.

Released by ABC-Paramount in March 1962, the album recast country and Western standards through Charles’s powerful R&B singing and piano style. Producer Sid Feller helped select the material, while the sessions used big-band arrangements by Gil Fuller and Gerald Wilson, strings arranged by Marty Paich, and saxophone work from Hank Crawford. The result blended country songwriting with soul, pop and jazz colors rather than presenting straightforward country covers.

The project was a major artistic and commercial gamble. Charles had built his reputation in Black rhythm and blues, and some colleagues and executives questioned the idea of a country album during an era of sharply segregated music markets. Its success proved that audiences could embrace the material across those boundaries. “I Can’t Stop Loving You” became a number-one hit, and the album itself topped the U.S. pop chart.

The title is sometimes confused with Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Volume Two, another 1962 album. Volume Two followed the original later that year, but the landmark first volume is the answer here. The listed alternatives are Ray Charles albums, but none is the country-soul crossover record described.