Well, Eddy Arnold might have written it, but there are not too many songs that Ray Charles records that don't instantly become his in the process. Other singers have a similar reputation — Frank Sinatra, for instance. But while few can touch Ol' Blue Eyes at his best, there are a select few recordings of some songs identified with him that I actually prefer. Recordings by such artists like Tony Bennett, Little Jimmy Scott, and Chet Baker, for instance. I can not imagine myself saying the same thing about Charles; as Otis Redding said of Aretha Franklin's cover of Redding's "R-E-S-P-E-C-T," Ray Charles "steals" songs.

He stole "You Don't Know Me" right out from under country legend Arnold in 1962 and no one came close to stealing it back from Charles until Emmylou Harris decided to record a devastating knock-out reading of the standard for her 1993 LP Cowgirl's Prayer. Arnold wrote the song in 1954 with Cindy Walker, a member of Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame who also penned classics for Bob Wills, Elvis Presley, and Jim Reeves, among many others. Arnold's is a perfectly fine, though soporific version of the song, missing all the passion that seems necessary to the emotion of the lyric. Saloon singer Jerry Vale had a Top 20 hit with the song in 1956. But Charles released his version on his classic crossover LP Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, hitting the Top Five, and the song is indelibly his in the minds of many listeners.

The genius, the pathos, and the soul that is Charles oozes into this recording, offsetting any gloss and sheen in the string-and-vocal-ensemble-laden production. His unmistakable voice aches with unrequited love and desire, longs for a woman that does not even see him as "just a friend/That's all I've ever been/For you don't know me." No matter how many times one hears the song, it still induces chills down the spine after the narrator blows any chance he might have had and is left alone at the end: "Afraid and shy, I let my chance go by/A chance that you might love me too/Oh, you give your hand to me and then you say good-bye/I watch you walk away beside the lucky guy/Oh, you'll never, never know the one who loves you so/Oh, you don't know me."

Spine-tingling is also the description of Harris's reading. She pulls off the near-impossible: taking a song from Brother Ray. But it is not out of bounds to posit that her's could probably not exist without Charles' interpretation; the context of his informs hers, making it that much more effective. Over a gentle, sparse, acoustic and pedal-steel arrangement, she sounds much like she did singing the covers she used to harmonize on with her old partner, the late Graham Parsons. But as with Tony Bennett, age has only served to season Harris' voice into one of the most expressive in popular music (though obviously Bennett has quite a few years on Ms. Harris). Her once-honey-sweet and girlish voice now has a tinge of emotional rasp. Perhaps the most remarkable achievement by Harris is that she reclaims "You Don't Know Me" as a country, or at least a country-soul song.
(Bill Janovitz, almusic.com)