[5] Genius marked the first time he worked within the setting of a traditional pop singer - he cut six songs with a studio big band and six with a string orchestra - and it was also his first full-length foray into the standards songbook.

Charles's performance of "Come Rain or Come Shine", a song identified with Frank Sinatra, brought public attention to his voice alone without the "distractions" of his soulful piano and his snappy band.

In a contemporary review, Joe Goldberg of the American Record Guide panned the arrangements as "hopelessly banal and inadequate, saved only" by the piano playing of Charles, who "comes through beautifully", and felt that only the last three songs give the album "its importance".

the album's highlight and "almost unbearably poignant, with the same feeling of deep sensibility transcending limited vocal equipment that can be heard on Walter Huston's recording of 'September Song', or Adolph Green's of 'A Quiet Girl'.

"[4] In 2000, Q magazine included The Genius of Ray Charles in their list of the "Best Soul Albums of All Time" and wrote that it "finds the great man swinging, emoting, cajoling and laughing his way through a selection of standards that he makes his own ... it exudes pure class.