Who won an award for acting the part of the singer of "What'd I Say"?
Charles spoofed this double standard on the television comedy show Saturday Night Live in 1977. He hosted an episode and had the original band he toured with in the 1950s to join him. In one skit, he tells a producer that he wants to record the song, but the producer tells him that a white band named the "Young Caucasians", composed of beaming white teenagers, are to record it first, which they do on the show, in a chaste, sanitized, and unexciting performance. When Charles and his band counter with their original version, Garrett Morris tells them, "Sorry. That'll never make it."Charles closed every show he played for the rest of his career with the song, later stating, "'What'd I Say' is my last song onstage. When I do 'What'd I Say', you don't have to worry about it—that's the end of me; there ain't no encore, no nothin'. I'm finished!"It was ranked tenth on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", with the summary, "Charles' grunt-'n'-groan exchanges with the Raeletts were the closest you could get to the sound of orgasm on Top Forty radio during the Eisenhower era". In 2000, it ranked number 43 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs in Rock and Roll and number 96 on VH1's 100 Greatest Dance Songs, being the oldest song in the latter ranking. The same year it was chosen by National Public Radio as one of the 100 most influential songs of the 20th century. A central scene in the 2004 biopic Ray features the improvisation of the song performed by Jamie Foxx, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Charles. For its historical, artistic, and cultural significance, the Library of Congress added it to the U.S. National Recording Registry in 2002. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame featured it as one of 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll in 2007.
Jamie Foxx