12 replies to this topic

[Anoushik]

Ray Charles, master of many musical styles, dies at 73


By Anthony Breznican
ASSOCIATED PRESS

3:22 p.m. June 10, 2004


BEVERLY HILLS – Ray Charles, a transcendent talent who erased musical boundaries between the sacred and the secular with hits such as "What'd I Say," "Georgia on My Mind" and "I Can't Stop Loving You," died Thursday. He was 73.

Charles died of acute liver disease at his Beverly Hills home at 11:35 a.m., surrounded by family and friends, said spokesman Jerry Digney.

Blind by age 7 and an orphan at 15, the gifted pianist and saxophonist spent his life shattering any notion of musical categories and defying easy definition. One of the first artists to record the "blasphemous idea of taking gospel songs and putting the devil's words to them," as legendary producer Jerry Wexler once said, Charles' music spanned soul, rock 'n' roll, R&B, country, jazz, big band and blues.

He put his stamp on it all with a deep, warm voice roughened by heartbreak from a hardscrabble childhood in the segregated South. Smiling and swaying behind the piano, grunts and moans peppering his songs, Charles' appeal spanned generations.

His health deteriorated rapidly over the past year, after he had hip replacement surgery and was diagnosed with a failing liver. The Grammy winner's last public appearance was alongside Clint Eastwood on April 30, when the city of Los Angeles designated the singer's studios, built 40 years ago, as a historic landmark.

Aretha Franklin called Charles "the voice of a lifetime."

"He was a fabulous man, full of humor and wit," she said in a statement. "A giant of an artist, and of course, he introduced the world to secular soul singing."

"People remember the big hits and the visual image of him, but they forget what an innovator he was in the 1950s as a jazz musician," said country music singer Marty Stuart. "He made inroads for all of us when he did 'I Can't Stop Loving You.' It took country music to places it hadn't been before."

"I lost one of my best friends and I will miss him a lot," Willie Nelson said in a statement. "Last month or so, we got together and recorded 'It Was a Very Good Year,' by Frank Sinatra. It was great hanging out with him for a day."

Charles won nine of his 12 Grammy Awards between 1960 and 1966, including the best R&B recording three consecutive years ("Hit the Road Jack," "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "Busted").

His versions of other songs are also well known, including "Makin' Whoopee" and a stirring "America the Beautiful." Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell wrote "Georgia on My Mind" in 1931, but it didn't become Georgia's official state song until 1979, long after Charles turned it into an American standard.

"I was born with music inside me. That's the only explanation I know of," Charles said in his 1978 autobiography, "Brother Ray."

Charles considered Martin Luther King Jr. a friend and once refused to play to segregated audiences in South Africa. But politics didn't take.

He was happiest playing music, teaming with such disparate musicians as Chaka Khan and Eric Clapton. Pepsi tapped him for TV spots around a powerfully simple "uh huh" theme, and he appeared in movies including "The Blues Brothers."

"The way I see it, we're actors, but musical ones," he once told The Associated Press. "We're doing it with notes, and lyrics with notes, telling a story. I can take an audience and get 'em into a frenzy so they'll almost riot, and yet I can sit there so you can almost hear a pin drop."

Charles was no angel. His womanizing was legendary, and he struggled with a heroin addiction for nearly 20 years before quitting cold turkey in 1965 after an arrest at the Boston airport. Yet there was a sense of humor about even that – he released both "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "Let's Go Get Stoned" in 1966.

He later became reluctant to talk about the drug use, fearing it would taint how people thought of his work.

"I've known times where I've felt terrible, but once I get to the stage and the band starts with the music, I don't know why but it's like you have pain and take an aspirin, and you don't feel it no more," he once said.

Said John Burk, who worked recently with Charles as producer of the upcoming duets album "Genius Loves Company": "There were a couple of times where he would say, 'I'm not feeling well today but I'll take a stab at it ... I can come back to it later.' And he never had to come back to it later."

He said Charles' gift was "finding and communicating the human emotion in a song. ... That's what we strive for in the recording process, is to find that human experience."

Ray Charles Robinson was born Sept. 23, 1930, in Albany, Ga. His father, Bailey Robinson, was a mechanic and a handyman, and his mother, Aretha, stacked boards in a sawmill. His family moved to Greenville, Fla., when Charles was an infant.

"Talk about poor," Charles once said. "We were on the bottom of the ladder."

Charles saw his brother drown in his mothers' laundry tub when he was about 5 as the family struggled through the Depression. His sight was gone two years later. Glaucoma is often mentioned as a cause, though Charles said nothing was ever diagnosed.

After he was sent away, heartbroken, to the state-supported St. Augustine School for the Deaf and the Blind, Charles learned to read and write music in Braille, score for big bands and play instruments – lots of them, including trumpet, clarinet, organ, alto sax and the piano.

His early influences were myriad: Chopin and Sibelius, the Grand Ole Opry, the powerhouse big bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, jazz greats Art Tatum and Artie Shaw.

By the time he was 15 his parents were dead and Charles had graduated from St. Augustine. He wound up playing gigs in black dance halls – the so-called chitlin' circuit – and exposed himself to a variety of music, including hillbilly (he learned to yodel) before moving to Seattle.

He dropped his last name in deference to boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, patterned himself for a time after Nat "King" Cole and formed a group that backed rhythm 'n' blues singer Ruth Brown. It was in Seattle's red light district were he met a young Quincy Jones, showing the future producer and composer how to write music. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

Charles developed quickly in those early days. Atlantic Records purchased his contract from Swingtime Records in 1952, and two years later he recorded "I Got a Woman," a raw mixture of gospel and R&B, pioneering what came to be called soul. Soon, he was being called "The Genius" and was playing at Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival.

His first big hit was 1959's "What'd I Say," a song built off a simple piano riff with suggestive moaning from the Raeletts. It was banned by some radio stations.

Producer Wexler, who recorded "What'd I Say," said he has worked with only three geniuses in the music business: Franklin, Bob Dylan and Charles.

"In each case they brought something new to the table," Wexler told the San Jose Mercury News in 1994. Charles "had this blasphemous idea of taking gospel songs and putting the devil's words to them."

Charles played "America" for Ronald and Nancy Reagan in 1985 at an inauguration ball, and was one of the legends receiving Kennedy Center Honors in 1986.

His last Grammy came in 1993 for "A Song for You," but he never dropped out of the music scene. He continued to tour and long treasured time for chess. He once told the Los Angeles Times: "I'm not Spassky, but I'll make it interesting for you."

Charles, who was divorced twice and single since 1952, was survived by 12 children, 20 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. A memorial service was planned for next week at Los Angeles' First AME Church, with burial afterward at Inglewood Cemetery.



http://www.signonsan...it-charles.html

[THOTH]

Wow thats sad - he was way cool and had lots of heart & soul...and great tunes...

[Anonymouse]

Anderson Cooper: "People have filled the streets of Washington DC to honor President Ronald Reagan, who died at 93....In other news, Ray Charles died. Now back to Jeff Bloom, LIVE in Washington to tell us more about the different poeple, young and old, who have gathered here, to say farewell, to a former President, who led the free world".

[angel4hope]

haha serious all i heard the whole week was REAGAN REAGAN REAGAN... even on the radio... even on the road the whole huor i ocunted the amount of times people mentioned him in 2 hours----- about over 300 times!! jeeeesusssssssssssss!! next thingu know humpty dumpty's in the unemployment line

[angel4hope]

ray charles was waaaay more respectable for me cheers old fellar

[Accelerated]

to a former President, who led the free world".

- American chauvinism has no limits - yesterday I heard how the que to see Reagans carcass is 5 hours long! - and they made fun of Soviet parades and such.

[Anoushik]

Anderson Cooper: "People have filled the streets of Washington DC to honor President Ronald Reagan, who died at 93....In other news, Ray Charles died. Now back to Jeff Bloom, LIVE in Washington to tell us more about the different poeple, young and old, who have gathered here, to say farewell, to a former President, who led the free world".

Wow, that's sad.

[Bakersfieldian]

I never knew anyone who disliked Ray Charles.

A true legend and 100% class act.

[_Anka_]

Ray Charles was an ICON for me. It makes me angry to see the ignorance of the media regarding his death. It's a shame. He was a great man and a true genius. He'll be missed.

[Harut]

you people need to stop listening to this commercial crap tv/radio stations and pay more attention to public radio. npr (or the local channal, kpcc (didn't catch which one it was)) had a great multi-hour program about him today on air.

[Armen]

I think Ray Charles has done more to bring the Soviet Union down than any Ronald Reagan. At least I as a Soviet kid knew him and his "What'd I say" before Reagan's speaches. And also back than (and now) I liked and I like America in part because of him.

[_Anka_]

Almost all the people I knew in Armenia loved and listened to Ray Charles. I'm not sure if it was serious or not but last year when I was in Armenia I was told by a jazz pianist that the Armenian government wanted to invite Ray Charles to Armenia.

[Bakersfieldian]

I'm sure he would have loved to have played in Armenia.

I don't know if any of you recall back when all of the sevs were boycotting Sun City, South Africa.

Ray Charles defied the boycott and played anyway.

He said he would play anywhere people wanted him.