Ray Charles Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Ray Charles (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was a pioneering pianist and 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 "God Bless America". His birth name was Ray Charles Robinson, but he shortened it when he entered show business to avoid confusion with the famous boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.
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2 Middle years 3 Later years 4 Last performances 5 Quotations 6 Sample 7 Suggested reading 8 External links |
Born in Albany, Georgia, Charles began going 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 had seen 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. There, he not only learned how to read Braille, but to write music and play various instruments. Also while there, his mother, who had raised him, died.
After leaving school, Charles began working as a musician in Florida, eventually moving to Seattle, Washington in 1947. He soon started recording, achieving his first hit song with "Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand" (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's music soon became more innovative. He toured with Lowell Fulson and worked with Guitar Slim and Ruth Brown. After joining Atlantic Records, Charles's sound become more and more original and groundbreaking as he took the feel, and many tunes, from gospel music and put them to secular lyrics performed in front of a jazz lineup playing R&B with exceptionally tight arrangements, with an occasional nod to country music, such as his version of Hank Snow's "I'm Moving On".
His first hit in this mode was "Mess Around," which was based on the 1929 classic "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" by Pinetop Smith. He had another hit with the raplike urban jive of "It Should Have Been Me", but went into high gear with the gospel drive of "I Got A Woman" (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 gospel songs converted with secular lyrics, 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 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 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 did move 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 out and out 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 "Take These Chains From My Heart".
In 1965, Charles was arrested for possession of heroin and was jailed for one year. After gaining his freedom, Charles defiantly released Ashford and Simpson's "Lets Go Get Stoned" (1966).
Since the 1960s, Charles's releases have been hit-or-miss, with some massive hits and critically acclaimed work, and some music that has been 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, with Charles performing it on the floor of the state legislature. He also had success with his unique version of "America the Beautiful". In 1980 Charles gave a musical cameo appearance in The Blues Brothers.
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 American cities he toured subsequently including Toronto, Albany, New York City and Los Angeles. 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 Democrat" Charles accepted $100,000 to perform America the Beautiful at Ronald Reagan's second inaugural ball. In response to criticism his manager, Roy Adams, commented ""for that kind of money we would have sung America The Beautiful at a Ku Klux Klan rally."
A notorious ladies' man, Charles was married twice and fathered 12 children. In a 60 Minutes profile, he admitted to Ed Bradley that he "auditioned" his female back-up singers. The saying was, "To be a Raelet, 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. Charles 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.
In 1986, he collaborated with Billy Joel on "Baby Grand" for Joel's album The Bridge. He became famous again in the 1990s as a spokesman for Diet Pepsi, but it is said that it boosted his career with younger audience, particularly through popularizing the catchphrase "You've got the right one, baby!" He also did guest vocals for the INXS song "Please (You've Got That...)", on the Full Moon, Dirty Hearts album.
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.
One of Charles's last public performances was in 2003 at a televised annual electronic media journalist banquet held in Washington, DC. President George W. Bush was in the audience where 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's 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 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, including B.B. King, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, James Taylor, 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.
A critically-acclaimed biopic, Ray, was released in October 2004, starring Jamie Foxx as Charles.
This is an Article on Ray Charles. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Ray Charles Early years
Middle years
Later years
Last performances
Quotations
Sample
Suggested reading
External links