True to Life

True to Life is a studio album by Ray Charles, released in October 1977 on Atlantic Records, Charles's return to the label where he had recorded his most celebrated early work, 18 years after his departure to ABC-Paramount, and produced by Larry Newton. Charles wrote or co-wrote several tracks; the album includes 'I Can See Clearly Now' (Johnny Nash's original), 'How Long Has This Been Going On,' 'Be My Love,' and 'Anonymous Love,' demonstrating Charles's continued range across soul, pop standards, and new commercial material. The album reached the top twenty on the Billboard R&B chart and represented the successful resumption of a major-label relationship that had defined the greatest period of his recording career. True to Life is primarily significant as the opening document of Charles's second Atlantic period, which would produce several more albums through the mid-1980s, and as evidence of the enduring commercial and artistic connection between Charles and the label whose production philosophy had done most to shape his sound. The Atlantic reunion confirmed the enduring commercial and artistic connection between Charles and the label whose production philosophy had done the most to shape his sound, and the subsequent Atlantic albums of the late 1970s and early 1980s demonstrate the sustained output of an artist whose creative productivity remained remarkable across four decades of recording.