![]() Erudite Stoner: After kicking his heroin habit, Charles coped by smoking weed every day.Dance Sensation: Everybody's doing the "Mess Around".After Ray made it famous as a dedication to the state of Georgia, it became the official state song. The Cover Changes the Meaning: The lyrics to "Georgia on My Mind" were originally written for composer Hoagy Carmichael's sister, despite it being ambiguous enough to refer to the state or a woman.Ray Charles: "I thought that was pretty good!" The Cameo: The opening titles for season 6 of the sitcom Designing Women was Charles performing "Georgia on My Mind" while the cast sits around his piano.(Ray didn't write it - that would be Percy Mayfield - but his version is the most well-known.) Break-Up Song: "Hit the Road, Jack", done with The Raelettes.Blind Musician: In some ways the Trope Maker for blind musicians being thought of as mainly keyboardists, since most of the prominent blind musicians of previous generations (like Blind Lemon Jefferson) were guitarists.Blind Black Guy: If a black character is blind, expect them to be a parody of Ray (or possibly Stevie Wonder, who himself emulated Charles' look in his Little Stevie days).Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962).As it was, he was still able to attend a private screening with the crew.Īlbums by Ray Charles that have their own page: He was set to attend the premiere had he lived. His early life, rise to fame, dalliances with drug addiction and involvement in the civil rights movement are chronicled in the Academy Award-winning Biopic Ray, released only a few months after his death. Ray's influence on other singers and musicians cannot be understated Frank Sinatra called him "the only true genius" in popular music, Billy Joel was hugely influenced by his piano playing and singing, the members of The Beatles all expressed their admiration for his achievements, with Paul McCartney crediting him as his reason for getting into music, and his song "What'd I Say" was allegedly the first song Mick Jagger performed as a member of The Rolling Stones. Although he struggled with drug addiction and sporadic success after the 1960s, interest in his music was renewed thanks to his appearance in The Blues Brothers in 1980, reinforced by being the musical spokesperson for a popular TV ad campaign for Diet Pepsi, and he remained popular until his death from cancer in 2004. Subsequently, he joined a major label ( ABC-Paramount) and decided to explore new sounds, including Jazz, Pop and especially Country, which earned him some of his biggest hits, including "Georgia On My Mind", "Hit the Road Jack" and "I Can't Stop Loving You" (a song which is now credited for helping to popularise country outside of its traditional audiences). While this music provoked some controversy at the time, these songs are now recognised as some of the first soul songs and established Ray as the pioneer of a whole new genre. Although he recorded a few minor hits, his big break came when he was signed to Atlantic Records in the early 1950s and recorded songs such as "Mess Around" (written by Atlantic co-founder and president Ahmet Ertegun), "I Got A Woman", "Hallelujah, I Love Her So" and "What'd I Say", which combined raw, passionate gospel energy with boogie-influenced music and secular lyrics. ![]() Losing his sight to an infection at a young age and educated in music at a school for the blind, Ray became a talented musician and multi-instrumentalist who got his start singing and playing piano and organ with country and blues bands in the 1940s. One of the first performers to fuse R&B and Gospel Music to create the Soul genre in The '50s, he also exerted a major influence on the development of the Rock & Roll genre. Ray Charles Robinson (Septem– June 10, 2004) was an American musician. It was a necessity for me - like food or water." It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart.
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