by Jonathan Graham

Ray Robinson Charles, the great blues composer, singer, and piano player from the United States, was born in Albany, Georgia in 1930.  His family was poor and moved to Greenville, Florida when he was an infant.

Ray began losing his sight when he was five.  By age seven, he was totally blind.  His blindness may have been caused by glaucoma, or it may have been caused by an untreated infection resulting from contact with soapy water.  His mother died when he was 15 and his father died when he was 18.

Ray first became interested in music as a young child when he heard boogie-woogie played on an upright piano by a family friend.  He later attended the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine from 1937 to 1945 (age 7 to age 15) and studied music there.  He first performed at a local radio station.

Charles learned classical music in school and soon became the school’s best musician, but he was more interested in the blues and jazz music that his family listened to at home on the radio.  He would play the piano and sing popular songs for assemblies and socials.  He formed his first band and composed “Jingle Bell Boogie.”

In 1945, a family in Tallahassee took him in and he worked in a general store as a cashier.  He played with the Florida A&M University student band, several other bands, and at the Governor’s Ball.

Then he lived in Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa and played with other groups.  He began wearing his trademark sunglasses all the time.

Ray moved to Seattle in 1947 to get away from Florida.  There he met 14-year old Quincy Jones and other musicians.  His first hit song was “Confession Blues” which became #2 on the R&B charts in 1949.  He used the name of Ray Charles to avoid confusion with Sugar Ray Robinson, the boxer.  He recorded two more hits before joining Atlantic Records in 1953.

He put out a series of hit songs, crossing over from R&B to Pop, and later joined ABC Records where he earned a larger percentage of the records’ profits than he did before.

Ray was addicted to heroin from 1945 to 1965.  He was arrested three times, but avoided jail time by kicking the habit at a clinic in Los Angeles.  He wrote the hit song, “Crying Time” when he was on parole in 1966.

He continued making hit songs until “Georgia On My Mind” was adopted as the State of Georgia’s theme song in 1979.  He also sang a popular arrangement of “America the Beautiful.”

The most recognizable quality of Ray’s vocals is his unique voice.  Ray had an exceptional baritone range and he also used grunts, groans, screams, and yells, along with words and melody, to convey the emotion in his songs.

He began appearing and performing on television and on the big screen in his late 40’s and his popularity continued until his death at his home in 2004 in Beverly Hills, California at age 73.  He was married twice and had twelve different children with nine different women.

Ray Charles grew up in poverty and developed blindness early in life.  He had the opportunity to learn piano and sing with students like him when he was seven.  He struggled with addiction to heroin for twenty years.

He continued developing his musical talent, despite the challenges he encountered, and eventually became quite successful as a composer, performer, and business person.  His motivation, his ambition, and his contact with other musicians contributed largely to his success. He is ranked along with Elvis Presley as being one of the great influences of American R&B and Pop music.

References:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Charles