Ray Charles: the 100 most inspiring musicians of all time

Ray Charles Robinson (b. Sept. 23, 1930, Albany, Ga., U.S.—d. June 10, 2004, Beverly Hills, Calif.) was an American pianist, singer, composer, and bandleader.

Ray Charles was a leading entertainer, often billed as “the Genius.” Charles was credited with the early development of soul music, a style based on a melding of gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz music.

When Ray Charles was an infant, his family moved to Greenville, Florida, and he began his musical career at age five on a piano in a neighbourhood café. He began to go blind at six, possibly from glaucoma, completely losing his sight by age seven. He attended the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, where he concentrated on musical studies, but left school at age 15 to play the piano professionally after his mother died from cancer (his father had died when the boy was 10).

Ray Charles built a remarkable career based on the immediacy of emotion in his performances. After emerging as a blues and jazz pianist indebted to Nat King Cole’s style in the late 1940s, Charles recorded the boogie-woogie classic “Mess Around” and the novelty song “It Should’ve Been Me” in 1952–53. His arrangement for Guitar Slim’s “The Things That I Used to Do” became a blues million-seller in 1953.

By 1954 Charles had created a successful combination of blues and gospel influences and signed on with Atlantic Records. Propelled by Charles’s distinctive raspy voice, “I’ve Got a Woman” and “Hallelujah I Love You So” became hit records. “What’d I Say” led the rhythm-and-blues sales
charts in 1959 and was Charles’s own first million-seller.

Ray Charles’s rhythmic piano playing and band arranging revived the “funky” quality of jazz, but he also recorded in many other musical genres. He entered the pop market with the bestsellers “Georgia on My Mind” (1960) and “Hit the Road, Jack” (1961). His album Modern Sounds in
Country and Western Music (1962) sold more than one million copies, as did its single, “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” Thereafter, his music emphasized jazz standards and renditions of pop and show tunes.

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From 1955, Ray Charles toured extensively in the United States and elsewhere with his own big band and a gospelstyle female backup quartet called The Raeletts. He also appeared on television and worked in films such as Ballad in Blue (1964) and The Blues Brothers (1980) as a featured act and soundtrack composer. He formed his own custom recording labels, Tangerine in 1962 and Crossover Records n 1973.

The recipient of many national and international awards, he received 13 Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 1987. In 1986 Charles was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received a Kennedy Center Honor. He published an autobiography, Brother Ray, Ray Charles’ Own Story (1978), written with David Ritz.

Download Ray Charles’ sheet music from our Library.

Ray Charles in Copenhagen 1973

Track List:

0:00 Intro 5:29 Hallelujah I Love Her So (Ray Charles) 9:08 Georgia On My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael & Stuart Gorrell) 15:09 You Made Me Love You (James V. Monaco & Joseph McCarthy) 18:12 Yesterday (Paul McCartney) 23:43 Feel So Bad (J. Johnson) 30:05 Goin’ Down Slow (“St. Louis” Jimmy Oden) 37:27 Goin’ Down Slow (Bis) 39:45 Intro Raelettes 44:16 Rocksteady (Aretha Franklin)

48:55 I Can’t Stop Loving You (Don Gibson) 54:48 Look What They Have Done To My Song, Ma (The New Seekers) 59:58 Indian Love Call (Nelson Eddy & Jeanette MacDonald) 1:14:40 Eleanor Rigby (Paul McCartney & John Lennon) 1:18:47 Introduction John Henderson 1:23:10 Shake (Ray Charles) 1:27:35 Ray introducing Raelettes by name; in call and response improv) 1:39:20 Leave My Man Alone (Vernita Moss) 1:42:54 Introduction band 1:43:41 So Soon (John Henderson) 1:48:30 What’d I Say (Ray Charles)