r ay Charles

(r ay charles peterson)
liver disease

Born: September 23, 1930

Died: June 10, 2004

Ray Charles’s achievements are astonishing enough in their own Unsurprisingly, many were shocked: “He’s mixing the blues
right; but then factor in the start he had in life… with the spirituals,” Big Bill Broonzy carped. “I know that’s wrong…
Born into a poor family in Albany, Georgia, Charles became he should be singing in a church.” He dropped another stone-
blind by the age of seven, due to glaucoma; if that weren’t bad cold classic with 1959’s “What’d I Say,” an electric piano-driven
enough, as a child he saw his younger brother drown, and both stomper that nodded to rock ’n’ roll, featuring call-and-response
his parents died while he was in his teens. Undeterred—driven all backing vocals (from The Raelettes) that derived from church
the more, if anything—he enrolled at Florida’s St. Augustine School meetings. (Rocker Eddie Cochran was another fan, and turned
for the Deaf and the Blind, where he studied music and Braille countless white audiences on to Charles by covering his “What’d
(which, in turn, helped him learn composition and arrangement). I Say” and “Hallelujah I Love Her So”). Combining R&B rhythms
“I met Ray when I was about fifteen and he was about with gospel passion, Ray Charles was laying the building blocks
eighteen,” recalled legendary producer Quincy Jones, “and of soul music, though jazz was never far away (note the ballads
even then he was always so damn positive, like he could listen to and jazz-band arrangements of 1959 breakthrough The Genius Of
a record of Billy Eckstine’s ‘Blowin’ The Blues Away,’ and he could Ray Charles).
tell you what everybody in the band was doing…It was Ray that He quit Atlantic for ABC in November 1959, with no immediate
taught me how to voice brass.” drop in quality. The warm mixture of weariness and love in his take
Having started out on the Florida club circuit as a singer and on Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia On My Mind” (1960) confirmed
pianist with a laid-back, sophisticated sheen à la Nat “King” Cole, Charles as one of popular song’s finest interpreters; he teamed
Charles drifted west to Seattle, making his first recordings in 1949. up with ace arranger Quincy Jones and members of Count
Atlantic Records picked him up in 1952, but he still hadn’t found Basie’s band to produce 1960’s big-band bonanza Genius + Soul =
his voice on the R&B numbers he cut with them. That came after Jazz; the comic, punchy “Hit The Road Jack” (1961) saw him play
Charles worked with hell-for-leather bluesman Guitar Slim, who the part of a put-upon philanderer with gusto; and that same year
brought the fervor of gospel into secular song. Charles learned the he gave a performance of effortlessly charming innuendo
lesson well, delivering an impassioned vocal on the driving “I Got A on “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” a hit duet from 1961’s Ray Charles
Woman” (1954, based on the hymn “Jesus Is All The World To Me”), And Betty Carter.
soon covered by Charles fan Elvis Presley. He grafted more lyrics The singer was mixing and matching genres for fun now, but
onto gospel songs to produce hits with “This Little Girl Of Mine” even for him his next move was a startling one. On Modern Sounds
(1955, previously “This Little Light Of Mine”), and “Talkin’ ’Bout You” In Country And Western (1962, his only Billboard No. 1 album), he
(1957, hitherto “Talkin’ ’Bout Jesus”). took inspiration from a genre that seemed utterly foreign to most

Right Ray Charles in concert in 1966.

224
 left Memorial viewing at the
Los Angeles Convention Center
in June 2004.

Right In concert at the Orleans Hotel

contemporary black artists, but the conviction and sensitivity of a long-term heroin addiction (to hide the tracks on his arms, he
his vocals swiftly established the album as a milestone release, always wore long sleeves).
spawning a million-seller in the aching “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” Between 1957 and 1971, Charles racked up thirty-two Top 40
The following year, Hank Williams’ “Take These Chains From My hits (his 1966 cover of Buck Owens’ “Crying Time” received two
Heart” provided another smash. In retrospect, of course, it made Grammys). He showed no signs of letting up in the 1970s, with
perfect sense: with its trademark tales of heartbreak, death, and regular tours, including trips to Japan, almost every year. As with
hard-living, what was country music but white blues? any artist whose career spans several decades, Charles was
“I’m a musician, man,” Charles told Q magazine in 1992. “I can capable of wild inconsistency and gargantuan misjudgements of
play Beethoven, I can play Rachmaninov, I can play Chopin. taste; he produced more than his share of schlock and recorded
Every now and then when I do dates with symphony orchestras, highlights became fewer over time. But his talent never deserted
I play these things and I shock the hell out of people.” Charles’ him—note his impassioned take on Stevie Wonder’s “Livin’ For The
eclectic approach to music making frustrated some—being “in City” from 1975’s Renaissance. A sparkling performance in The
every camp,” as Quincy Jones described him—but he could Blues Brothers (1980) movie proved his gift for comedy was intact,
spread the talent mighty thin. The early 1960s saw him consolidate while a few years later he provided strong vocal support on USA
his stature as one of popular music’s giants, with a world tour in For Africa’s “We Are The World.”
1964, selling out Paris’s Olympia Theatre ten nights in a row—an Liver disease finally claimed Charles in 2004, but even death
unprecedented feat for any American artist. couldn’t stop him: the posthumous Genius Loves Company—an
During the first half of the decade, he was voted best singer five easy-going collaboration with a host of admirers including Van
times by critics in Down Beat magazine, though by the mid-1960s Morrison, B. B. King, Willie Nelson, and Elton John—picked up eight
much of the bite and edge had gone and he became an “easy Grammys. (He also left behind him two marriages, and twelve
listening” artist. In truth, he’d already packed several lifetimes’ children, by seven mothers.)
worth of innovation into barely a decade. Moreover, he had All in all, he was fully deserving of the epithet that Frank Sinatra
other priorities: busted in 1965, Charles spent the next year kicking bestowed upon him in the 1950s: genius.

226