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Ray Charles (Ray Charles Robinson) (September 23,
1930 – June 10, 2004), was a pioneering
American piano|pianist and soul music|soul singer
who helped shape the sound of rhythm and blues and
brought a soulful sound to everything from country
music to pop standards to a now-iconic rendition
of  "America the Beautiful." Frank Sinatra called
him "the only genius in the business."


==Early years==
He was born Ray Charles Robinson in Albany,
Georgia. His name was shortened to Ray Charles
when he entered show business to avoid confusion
with boxing|boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.  Charles
began going blindness|blind at around age five and
was totally blind by age seven. He said that the
causes were undiagnosed, but many believe it was
as a result of glaucoma. Just before his eyes
began to fail, he witnessed his younger brother,
George, drown in a washtub.  He attended school at
the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in
St. Augustine, Florida as a charity case; he
learned how to read Braille, as well as to write
music and play various instruments.  While he was
there, his mother, who had raised him, died.

After he left school, Charles began working as a
musician in Florida, eventually moving to Seattle,
Washington|Seattle in 1947.  He soon started
recording, achieving his first hit song with
"Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand" (1951 in
music|1951).

Early influences on his work were Nat King Cole
(both his vocals and piano playing) and Charles
Brown. While his first recordings were only
skillful imitations of his heroes, Charles' music
soon became more innovative.  He toured with
Lowell Fulson and worked with Guitar Slim and Ruth
Brown. After joining Atlantic Records, Charles'
sound became more original. For example, Charles
controversially adapted secular lyrics to many
gospel songs, and then played them with jazz
backgrounds.

==Middle years==

His first hit in this mode was "Mess Around,"
which was based on the 1929 classic "Pinetop's
Boogie Woogie" by Pinetop Smith and written by
Ahmet Ertegun, his producer at Atlantic Records.
He had another hit with the rap music|rap-like
urban jive of "It Should Have Been Me," but went
into high gear with the gospel drive of "I Got A
Woman." (1955 in music|1955) This was followed by
"This Little Girl of Mine," "Drown in My Own
Tears," "Hallelujah I Love Her So," and "Lonely
Avenue," half of them were gospel songs converted
with secular lyrics, and the others blues ballads.

Although Charles was criticized for singing gospel
songs with secular lyrics, there is a long
tradition of putting religious lyrics to popular
songs and vice versa.  See Thomas A. Dorsey, one
of the founders of gospel music, who also had a
significant career in secular music.  Solomon
Burke and Little Richard also moved between the
two styles.  

After an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival
he achieved mainstream success with "(The Night
Time is) The Right Time" and his 1957 signature
song, "What'd I Say." The essence of this phase of
his career can be heard on his live album Ray
Charles In Person, recorded before a mostly
African American audience in Atlanta,
Georgia|Atlanta in 1958. This album also features
the first public performance of "What'd I Say." It
broke out as a hit in Atlanta from the tape,
months before it was recorded in the studio in a
two-part version with better fidelity.  

Charles had already begun to go beyond the limits
of his blues-gospel synthesis while still at
Atlantic, which now called him The Genius. He
recorded with large orchestras and with jazz
artists like Milt Jackson and even made his first
country music cover with Hank Snow's "I'm Movin'
On."  

Then, he moved on to ABC Records. At ABC, Charles
had a great deal of control over his music, and
broadened his approach, not on experimental side
projects, but with pop music, resulting in such
hits as "Unchain My Heart" and "Hit the Road,
Jack." In 1962, Charles surprised his new, broad
audience with his landmark album Modern Sounds in
Country and Western Music, which included the
numbers "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "You Don't
Know Me." This was followed by a series of hits,
including "You Are My Sunshine," "Crying Time,"
"Busted" and "Unchain My Heart."

In 1961, Charles cancelled a concert scheduled to
take place in the Bell Auditorium in Augusta,
Georgia to protest segregated seating. Contrary to
what the biopic Ray (movie)|Ray says, he was never
banned in Georgia (U.S. State)|Georgia, although
he did have to pay the promoter compensation.
http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=2660672&na
v=0RZFTvXr

==Later years==
In 1965, Charles was arrested for possession of
heroin, a drug to which he had been addicted for
seventeen years.   It was his third arrest for the
offense, but he avoided prison time after kicking
the habit in a clinic in Los Angeles,
California|Los Angeles.  He spent a year on parole
and defiantly released Ashford and Simpson's "Lets
Go Get Stoned." (1966 in music|1966)

After the 1960s, Charles' releases were
hit-or-miss, with some massive hits and critically
acclaimed work, and some music that was dismissed
as unoriginal and staid. He concentrated largely
on live performances, although his version of 
"Georgia On My Mind," a Hoagy Carmichael song
originally written for a girl named Georgia, was a
hit and soon was proclaimed the state song of
Georgia on April 24, 1979, with Charles performing
it on the floor of the Georgia General
Assembly|state legislature. He also had success
with his unique version of "America the
Beautiful."  In 1980 Charles made a musical cameo
appearance in The Blues Brothers.

In the late 1980s, a number of events increased
Ray's recognition among young audiences. In 1985,
"Night Time is the Right Time" was featured in the
episode "Happy Anniversary" of The Cosby Show.
Cast members used the song to perform a wildly
popular lip-synch that helped the show secure its
wide viewership. In 1986, he collaborated with
Billy Joel on "Baby Grand" for Joel's album The
Bridge (Billy Joel album)|The Bridge. In 1987,
Charles guest-starred in the episode "Hit the
Road, Chad," of Who's the Boss. Charles performed
the song, "Always a Friend." Charles' new
connection with audiences helped secure a
spokesmanship for Pepsi|Diet Pepsi. In this highly
successful advertising campaign, Charles
popularized the catchphrase "You've got the right
one, baby!" At the height of his newfound fame in
the early nineties, Charles did guest vocals for
quite a few projects. These included the INXS song
"Please (You've Got That...)," on the Full Moon,
Dirty Hearts album, as well as the theme song for
Designing Women in its sixth season. He also
appeared (with Chaka Khan) on long time friend
Quincy Jones' hit I'll Be Good To You in 1990. In
2004 he did a duets album, Genius Loves Company,
which got nominated in the Grammy Awards for Best
Pop Vocal Album, Album of the year and Record of
the year. He won Album of the year and record of
the year. A duet with Norah Jones, Here We Go
Again, was nominated for Best Song.

==Last performances==

One of Charles' last public performances was in
2003 at a televised annual electronic media
journalist banquet held in Washington, D.C.
He performed "Georgia On My Mind" and "America the
Beautiful," though the singer was a bit slower and
had some more vocal difficulty than in his younger
days.
Ray Charles' final public appearance came on April
30, 2004, at the dedication of his music studio as
an historic landmark in the city of Los Angeles.

He died at age 73 of liver disease at his home in
Beverly Hills, California|Beverly Hills,
surrounded by family and friends.
He was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in
Inglewood, California.

His final album, Genius Loves Company, released
after his death, consists of duets with various
admirers and contemporaries: B.B. King, Van
Morrison, Willie Nelson, James Taylor, Gladys
Knight, Michael McDonald, Natalie Cole, Elton
John, Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, and
Johnny Mathis.

Unlike a similar Frank Sinatra album, the duets
were recorded face-to-face, with both performers
in the studio at the same time.  

Charles was significantly involved in the
critically-acclaimed biopic Ray (movie)|Ray, an
October 2004 in film|2004 film which portrays his
life and career between 1930 and 1966 and stars
Jamie Foxx as Charles.  Foxx won the 2005 Best
Actor 77th Academy Awards|Academy Award for the
role.

Before shooting could begin, however, director
Taylor Hackford brought Foxx to meet Charles, who
heard that the younger man was an accomplished
pianist and insisted that they sit down at two
pianos and jam.
For two hours, Charles challenged Foxx, who
revealed the depth of his talent, and finally,
Charles stood up, hugged Foxx, and proclaimed,
"He's the one...he can do it," thus giving his
blessing. 

Charles was able to attend a showing of the
completed film, but he died before it opened in
theaters.  

The film's credits note that he is survived by 12
children, 21 grandchildren, and five great
grandchildren.

Many of today's artists continue to honor the
legacy of Charles. The 2005 Grammy Awards were
dedicated to him, and Alicia Keys performed a
virtual duet with Charles — that is, a clip
of Charles performing "America the Beautiful" was
played on the Jumbotron screen, while Keys sang
live — at Super Bowl XXXIX.

Charles was posthumously awarded a Grammy for his
work on Genius Loves Company.

Charles's estate is worth an estimated $100
million.

==Recognition in Halls of Fame==
He was an original inductee into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. He is also a member of the Blues
Foundation Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of Fame,
the Songwriters' Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of
Fame, the Jazz Hall of Fame, the Georgia Music
Hall of Fame, the Florida Artists Hall of Fame,
and the Playboy Hall of Fame.

==Controversies==
Despite his support of Martin Luther King, Jr., in
the 1960s and his support for the civil rights
movement, Charles courted controversy when he
toured South Africa in 1981 despite an
international boycott of the country because of
its apartheid policy. He faced pickets in South
Africa and in 15 North America|North American
cities he toured subsequently including Albany,
New York|Albany, Los Angeles, New York City|New
York and Toronto. The United Nations agency
supporting the boycott asked him to apologize and
promise not to visit South Africa until the
abolition of apartheid to which he responded that
they could "kindly kiss (my) far end."  Despite
having described himself as a "Hubert Humphrey
United States Democratic Party|Democrat," Charles
accepted $100,000 to perform "America the
Beautiful" at former U.S. president Ronald
Reagan's U.S. presidential election, 1984|second
inaugural ball. In response to criticism, his
manager, Roy Adams, commented: "For that kind of
money he would have sung 'America the Beautiful'
at a Ku Klux Klan rally." 

A notorious ladies' man, Charles was married twice
and fathered twelve children by seven different
women. In a 60 Minutes profile, he admitted to Ed
Bradley that he "auditioned" his female back-up
singers.  The saying was, "To be a Raelette,
you've got to let Ray."  

From the time of his switch from straight rhythm
and blues with a combo, Charles was often accused
of selling out.  He left behind his classic
formulation of rhythm and blues to sing country
music, pop songs, and soft-drink commercials. In
the process, he went from a niche audience to
worldwide fame.

==Quotations==
*"When I started to sing like myself — as
opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done
for a while — when I started singing like
Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy,
this religious or gospel sound. It had this
holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very
controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it."
— (San Jose Mercury News, 1994)

*"Do it right or don’t do it at all. That
comes from my mom. If there’s something I
want to do, I’m one of those people that
won’t be satisfied until I get it done. If
I’m trying to sing something and I
can’t get it, I’m going to keep at it
until I get where I want it." — (Fort
Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, 1998)

*"The fact of the matter is, you don’t give
up what’s natural. Anything I’ve
fantasized about, I’ve done." — (Los
Angeles Times, 1989)

==Sample==
* Media:What'dISay.ogg|Download OGG sample of
"What'd I Say"

==Major discography==
* (1958) Live (Ray Charles)|Live
* (1959) The Genius of Ray Charles
* (1962) Modern Sounds in Country and Western
Music
* (1991) The Birth of Soul: The Complete Atlantic
Rhythm and Blues Recordings
* (2004) Genius Loves Company

==Suggested reading==
*Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story by Ray
Charles & David Ritz (Da Capo, ISBN 0306813351).
Doubleday; (October 1, 1978).

==Songs in movies==
*In 1980, Shake Your Tailfeather was in the movie
Blues Brothers.
*In 1987, Mess Around was featured in the movie
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, 'performed' by
John Candy in a rental car.
*In 1993, You Don't Know Me was featured in the
movie Groundhog Day (movie)|Groundhog Day, with
Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.
*In 2001, I Can't Stop Loving You was featured
over the largely-silent ending climax of the
animated film Metropolis (2001 movie)|Metropolis.

==See also==
*List of number-one hits (United States)
*List of artists who reached number one on the Hot
100 (US)
*List of number-one dance hits (United States)
*List of artists who reached number one on the US
Dance chart

==External links==

*http://www.raycharles.com/ Official website,
including
http://www.raycharles.com/discography.aspx
discography
*http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/14/60minut
es/main649346.shtml The Genius Of Ray Charles, an
article about an 1986 segment on Charles from  60
Minutes
*http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2004-11-04/news_
story6.php No Ray of Hope, a critical article
regarding Charles' politics by a Toronto
journalist
*http://www.boheme-magazine.net/july04/charles.htm
l Bohème Magazine Obituary: Ray Charles
(1930-2004)