Tds34, I had stopped buying Ray Charles before I owned a CD player, so I don't really know what's out there, and I can't speak to the part of your question about good recordings. The man was so prolific and covered so much ground that I think getting a good compilation of best-of's is an excellent idea.
His Atlantic Records releases in the 50's show off his unadorned jazz and R&B roots. In '59 he moved to ABC, where most of his famous pop hits (Georgia, Can't Stop Loving You, Ruby, Crying Time, etc.) were recorded. Many of these featured overly sweet strings and and florid choral backings, but these were balanced by the earth, gravel and fire of Charles' voice, and somehow it all came together. And he still produced hits with jazz and R&B colleagues like Quincy Jones, Basie band members, and Betty Carter.
After the early 70's, there's less to choose from, I think. I have an album from 1977, True To Life, that has a number of pointless songs, including a renditon of Let It Be. Still, it has versions of Oh What A Beautiful Morning and Gershwin's How Long Has This Been Going On that have great vocals and charts and are among my favorites. He always remained a deeply soulful performer.
A few albums I'm fond of... The Genius of Ray Charles features Ray as a big band singer and is really dynamic. An Atlantic "Best Of..." collects a number of instrumentals with Charles and jazz combos doing economical and swinging, bluesy jazz and R&B. I'm a big fan of Ray and Cleo Laine's collaboration on Porgy and Bess. Fascinating and effective contrast in singing styles, nice orchestral arrangements, and also some really tasty instrumental interludes featuring Ray in a jazz quartet. I'm not calling these representative of Ray's output (as if any few albums could be). I'd go with a compilation; just look for variety. There's plenty of time to listen to Ray. I hope they send his music up in a space capsule.
