listened as a youth. Social impact Following the album's release, Charles quickly earned an influx of white listeners and audiences at concert venues, without experiencing any fall-out from his predominantly black audience. Writer Daniel Cooper later said of the album's effect, "It's an idea as corny as any country song you can think of, and one that Charles knew to be true; music unites people. It just really does." Throughout the years following its initial reception, Modern Sounds gained further acknowledgment of its impact on the music industry and society. Through conceiving and recording the album, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to receive and practice artistic control bestowed upon by a mainstream record company. In a 1998 interview, country musician Raul Malo acknowledged the album's influence, calling it "one of the most important records of our time, not only because of its content, but also due to its social and political ramifications." In a July 8, 2004 article for Rolling Stone magazine, music journalist Robert Christgau praised the impact and influence that the Modern Sounds recordings had on music, stating "In the world it created, not only could a black person sing the American songbook Ella Fitzgerald owned by then, but a country black person could take it over. Soon Charles's down-home diction, cotton-field grit, corn-pone humor and overstated shows of emotion were standard operating procedure in American music, black and white." In addition to its social implications, the musical integration of soul and country into popular format by Charles changed and revolutionized racial boundaries and restraints in music, and contributed to the historical Civil Rights Movement. Robert Fontenot of About.com was one of several writers to praise the album's musical and social implications, stating "Arguably one of the most brilliant interpretive albums ever released, it did more to integrate modern American music than almost any other LP in history." In paying tribute to the magazine's selection of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, which had selected Charles at #2, singer-songwriter Billy Joel noted the album's racial and social impact in an article for Rolling Stone, stating "here is a black man giving you the whitest possible music in the blackest possible way, while all hell is breaking loose with the civil rights movement." Another article for Rolling Stone, written in honor of Charles and his achievements, later stated that through his Modern Sounds recordings, Ray