SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SUMMER/FALL, 2015
VOLUME ONE NUMBER FOUR
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SUMMER/FALL, 2015
VOLUME ONE NUMBER FOUR
BILLIE HOLIDAY
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
ERIC DOLPHY
July 18-24
MARVIN GAYE
July 25-31
ABBEY LINCOLN
August 1-7
RAY CHARLES
August 8-14
SADE
August 15-21
BETTY CARTER
August 22-28
CHARLIE PARKER
August 29-September 4
MICHAEL JACKSON
September 5-11
CHAKA KHAN
September 12-18
JOHN COLTRANE
September 19-25
SARAH VAUGHAN
September 26-October 2
THELONIOUS MONK
October 3-9
ERIC DOLPHY
July 18-24
MARVIN GAYE
July 25-31
ABBEY LINCOLN
August 1-7
RAY CHARLES
August 8-14
SADE
August 15-21
BETTY CARTER
August 22-28
CHARLIE PARKER
August 29-September 4
MICHAEL JACKSON
September 5-11
CHAKA KHAN
September 12-18
JOHN COLTRANE
September 19-25
SARAH VAUGHAN
September 26-October 2
THELONIOUS MONK
October 3-9
TWO GREAT BLACK GIANTS PASS ON:
RAY CHARLES & RALPH WILEY
by Kofi Natambu
June 15, 2004
The Fabulous Williams Sisters Website
@ http://williamssisters.yuku.com/
The untimely deaths of Ray Charles (1930-2004) and Ralph Wiley
(1952-2004) this past week reminds us all once again that we should
never take lightly or for granted the important roles that such
extraordinary individuals play in our lives. These truly great African
American artists of music and literature/journalism are not only going
to be deeply missed but are frankly irreplaceable in the pantheon of
legendary icons and gifted artists and individuals that our tremendous
culture have produced. I am very saddened and angry that this insidious,
reactionary nation could see fit to publically honor such a despicable,
ignorant, bigoted, and immoral gangster as Ronald Wilson Reagan/RayGun
and barely even mention the passing of such a genuine GIANT as the
immortal Ray Charles, a man of tremendous talent, vision, and creative
genius who brought so much joy, knowledge, and inspiration to millions
of people around the globe for over 50 years. There are no words that
could possibly describe what this great artist and human being was able
to accomplish in spite of pervasive racism, crippling childhood poverty,
and physical blindness. What a tower of strength, dedication, spiritual
force, and sheer creative power this man and his amazing music was and
is! Whenever I hear or see Ray Charles I think of all the many things
and people in my life who make African American culture one of the
greatest and most timeless treasures on Planet Earth. I think
particularly of the warmth, beauty, passion, and intellectual/spiritual
power of my parents who were born and raised in Georgia and Mississippi
and migrated to the North after WWII along with millions of other black
folks. That is the extraordinary generation that Ray and his music so
clearly embodied, epitomized, and represented so beautifully and that
has left us all such a wonderful legacy of what REAL ART IS. I can't
begin to tell you how captivating, enriching, and just plain SOULFUL the
experience of growing up with that music has been in my life and the
profound impact that it has had on me, my siblings, aunts, uncles,
cousins, friends, and neighbors all these years. What a great loss his
passing is. WE LOVE YOU RAY! Please don't forget his music folks and
pass it and everything it connotes and represents on to your children,
friends, and family. Like all great artists Ray Charles actually CHANGED
THE WORLD with his sound and his songs. How many people can say that?
Ray Charles, 1930 - 2004
by TIM KIRKER
September 30, 2005
All About Jazz
Often cited as "the genius of soul music, Ray Charles used his prodigious talents as singer, pianist, and bandleader to marry elements of blues and gospel into an exciting new genre. Initially ruling the R&B charts, Charles' gritty, passionate croon became the essence of soul and with his unique genre-crossing sensibility hit songs flourished throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He tackled styles as diverse as jazz, R&B, blues, pop, and country music, possessing each one fluently.
Ray Charles Robinson was born on September 23, 1930 in Albany, Georgia. Poverty and traumatic hardships shaped Ray's childhood. At five years old he witnessed the drowning of his younger brother in a laundry tub, an event that would haunt him for many years. At six Ray began losing his eye sight, presumably from untreated glaucoma, though it was never diagnosed. A year later he was completely blind.
A local general store owner became Ray's unlikely musical mentor. Wylie Pitman's Red Wing Café was home to a piano and a jukebox, two sources of alluring inspiration for a three year old boy. "Mr. Pit would often play boogie woogie piano and urged Ray to hop up and play regularly. In 1937, he was accepted on a charity grant to a school for the deaf and blind to study music. He received a formal education in composition and learned a variety of instruments including piano, organ, saxophone, clarinet, and trumpet. From the beginning his love of music was expansive, enjoying the popular big bands of the day like Artie Shaw and Count Basie or appreciating classical composers such as Chopin and Sibelius. He found pleasure in the hillbilly sounds of the Grand Ole Opry and was drawn to the soulfulness of gospel and the raw emotion of the blues. This openness to so many genres of music would become intrinsic to his own body of work.
Ray performed with various bands, including a country band, in Florida before getting the urge to move to Seattle in 1947. His reputation as a musician and arranger beginning to prosper, he and friend Gosady McKee formed a R&B/pop outfit called the McSon Trio (also misspelled Maxim Trio), in the vein of Charles Brown and his idol Nat King Cole. They recorded one major hit called "Confession Blues in 1949. Seattle was also where Ray first met a fourteen year old trumpet player named Quincy Jones. It would be a life-long friendship with occasional musical collaborations.
In the early 50s Ray rose steadily to prominence, launching hit singles with small bands and playing or arranging for others. He toured with blues artist Lowell Fulson and worked with both Guitar Slim and Ruth Brown, all of whom helped mold his own singing style. His sound now straying from the Nat King Cole inflections, it extended to blues ballads and jazz instrumentals sprinkled with gospel influences.
Atlantic Records offered him a contract late in 1952 and a hit soon followed with "It Should Have Been Me. Not until late 1954 did Ray form his own band and capitalize on the trademark blues/gospel blend that people came to know him for. Once that happened his muse broke free. Ray's warm vocal timbre relaying the spiritual screams, wails, and moans that would give birth to soul music. In a recording session that included an upbeat bop and R&B horn section he recorded his own composition "I Got a Woman. The song was buoyant with the blues, yet sung in a husky, passionate vocal straight from the gospel idiom that stemmed from Ray's Baptist church days. It was a crossover hit on both pop and R&B charts and made Ray Charles famous.
Atlantic allowed Ray an unusual amount of artistic freedom to bring what he wanted to the studio. He was still recording jazz and blues sides as well as R&B singles in the mode of "I Got a Woman. In 1957, searching for a fuller, more choir-like sound, Ray added female back-up singers to his records and touring, naming them The Raelettes. He continued to conquer the charts with songs like "A Fool for You," "Drown In My Own Tears," "Hallelujah I Love Her So," "The Right Time, and "Lonely Avenue." His foray into the pop charts occurred with "What'd I Say, an infectious number that opened with a sprightly electric piano line and caught fire like a Jerry Lee Lewis rock n' roll number, complete with pleading back-up vocals from the Raelettes.
Feeling the need to expand his sound again Ray went into the studio in 1959 and recorded with the accompaniment of strings and a big band. Six of the tracks were arranged by his old friend Quincy Jones and included veteran Count Basie and Duke Ellington sidemen. Another six tracks were orchestrated ballads. The resulting album would aptly be named The Genius of Ray Charles and enhanced Ray's reputation even wider.
Sensing a need for a new musical strategy Ray left Atlantic Records for ABC-Paramount shortly thereafter. He continued his amazing parade of hits well into the 60s and also mastered other genres like pop, country music and soundtracks, always soulfully making them his own. Ray Charles' genius came in many forms.
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Ray-Charles
Ray Charles
American Musician
Also known as
Ray Charles Robinson
the Genius
Ray Charles
American Musician
Also known as
Ray Charles Robinson
the Genius
born: September 23, 1930
Albany, Georgia
died: June 10, 2004
Beverly Hills, California
Albany, Georgia
died: June 10, 2004
Beverly Hills, California
Ray Charles, original name Ray Charles Robinson (born Sept. 23, 1930, Albany, Ga., U.S.—died June 10, 2004, Beverly Hills, Calif.), American pianist, singer, composer, and bandleader, a leading black entertainer 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 Charles was an infant his family moved to Greenville, Fla., 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, and had completely lost 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).
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.
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 best-sellers “Georgia on My Mind” (1960) and “Hit the Road, Jack” (1961). His album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962) sold more than a 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.
![Charles, Ray [Credit: AP]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vQDemPJYH_StmRv5fWCo0_Vcp-xORfAbHGTx-UOwUe0uMavuTob-JxQ0HiK2_fVumQlR_RTQxcsvvAf2ufQ8dR1Plm78t4pSyCSxu_pOUM0JVkZkcJt5SUSwBdE6Ptm4K8Ev-Xwvlr=s0-d)
Ray Charles [Credit: AP]
From 1955 Charles toured extensively in the United States and elsewhere with his own big band and a gospel-style 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 sound track composer. He formed his own custom recording labels, Tangerine in 1962 and Crossover Records in 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.
http://rockhall.com/inductees/ray-charles/bio/
Ray Charles Biography
Ray Charles (vocals, piano; born September 23, 1930, died June 10, 2004)Many musicians possess elements of genius, but only one — the great Ray Charles — so completely embodied the term that it was bestowed upon him as a nickname. Charles displayed his genius by combining elements of gospel and blues into a fervid, exuberant style that would come to be known as soul music. While recording for Atlantic Records during the Fifties, the innovative singer, pianist and bandleader broke down the barriers between sacred and secular music. The gospel sound he’d heard growing up in the church found its way into the music he made as an adult. In his own words, he fostered “a crossover between gospel music and the rhythm patterns of the blues.” But he didn’t stop there: over the decades, elements of country & western and big-band jazz infused his music as well. He is as complete and well-rounded a musical talent as this century has produced.
Born in Albany, Georgia, on September 23, 1930, Charles was raised in Greenville, Florida, where he made the acquaintance of a piano-playing neighbor. As a youngster, Charles apprenticed with him at his small store-cum-juke joint while digesting the blues, boogie-woogie and big-band swing records on his jukebox. At age six, he contracted glaucoma, which eventually left him blind. Charles studied composition and mastered a variety of instruments, piano and saxophone principal among them, during nine years spent at the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and the Blind. Thereafter, he played around Florida in a variety of bands and then headed for the West Coast, where he led a jazz-blues trio that performed in the polished style of Nat “King” Cole and Charles Brown. After cutting singles for labels such as Downbeat and Swingtime, Charles wound up on Atlantic Records in 1952. It turned out to be an ideal match between artist and label, as both were just beginning to find their feet.
Given artistic control at Atlantic after demonstrating his knack as an arranger with Guitar Slim’s “Things That I Used to Do” — the biggest R&B hit of 1954 — Charles responded with a string of recordings in which he truly found his voice. This extended hit streak, which carried him through the end of the decade, included such unbridled R&B milestones as “I Got a Woman,” “Hallelujah I Love Her So,” “Drown in My Own Tears” and the feverish call-and-response classic “What’d I Say.” All were sung in Charles’ gruff, soulful voice and accompanied by the percussive punctuations of his piano and a horn section. After his groundbreaking Atlantic years, Charles moved to ABC/Paramount, where he claimed the unlikeliest of genres as his own with Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, an album that topped the Billboard chart for 14 weeks in 1962.
Throughout his career, Charles never stopped pursuing that uncategorizable blend of idioms that is best described with a single word: soul. And just what is soul, according to Ray Charles? As he told Time magazine in 1968: “It’s a force that can light a room. The force radiates from a sense of selfhood, a sense of knowing where you’ve been and what it means. Soul is a way of life – but it’s always the hard way." Charles remained active as a performer and recording artist right up to his death from liver disease on June 10, 2004 at age 73.
November 19, 1990
Vol. 34 No. 20
Ray Charles
by David Grogan
PEOPLE
Vol. 34 No. 20
Ray Charles
by David Grogan
PEOPLE
At 60, the Granddaddy of Soul Just Keeps Rolling Out the Good Times for New Generations of Toe-Tapping, Table-Slapping Fans
The Genius of Soul is a bit cranky tonight. With showtime approaching for his 11:30 P.M. set at New York City's Blue Note, brother Ray Charles is slumped in a dressing room chair, moody and wrapped in silence. Minutes pass. Then Charles, blind since childhood, turns slowly toward a darkened window. In a whisper-soft voice he begins to sing, not a blues or a country ballad, but an old, sentimental World War II song: "When the lights go on again, all over the world..."
The moment ends. It is showtime now, and soon Charles is standing onstage in the warmth of bright lights and a packed house. While his 15-piece brass band roars behind him, he starts to rabbit-hop in time with the music, then wraps his arms around his shoulders in a symbolic embrace of the audience. For the next hour he stays in perpetual motion, swaying to fast tunes behind his electric piano like a funk-beat metronome. The tempo slows as he gently caresses the melody of his signature ballad, "Georgia on My Mind." And when the Raeletts, his five-woman chorus, join the band for a bone-rattling "What I Say," Charles's infectious glee spreads through the $50-a-ticket crowd.
"My mama taught me to give my all to a job, no matter what," he says later, still pumped with excitement backstage. "You've just got to do it and not complain. You never know how much time you have left in the world."
Ray Charles turned 60 recently, and the man who invented soul nearly four decades ago is still making every moment count. Earlier this year, his duet with Chaka Khan titled "I'll Be Good to You," from Quincy Jones's Back on the Block album, topped the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart. His latest album, Would You Believe?, released just last month, was finished in time to free Charles for a six-week tour of the Far East and Europe with guitarist B.B. King, pianist Gene Harris and the 17-piece Philip Morris Super-band. Meanwhile, he is a ubiquitous presence on television as the star of a Diet Pepsi ad campaign.
Years ago Frank Sinatra called Charles "the only genius in the business." Ray doesn't put much stock in such praise. "I'll get all the accolades," he shrugs, "but at my best I will never make half the money that Sinatra has made. It's not going to happen. But when you break it down, what does it matter? I can only sleep in one bed at a time. I can only make love to one woman at a time."
A notorious ladies' man, Charles has sired nine children, ages 14 to 40, with seven different women, and has seven grandchildren. "All my kids know me," he says proudly. Vowing to remain single after two failed attempts at marriage, Charles is a restless spirit, often subject to mercurial moods. When he is down, there is no approaching him. When he is happy, there is no resisting him.
As he starts his seventh decade, Charles still spends most of his days on the road, traveling nine months each year. Chess, a game he discovered while kicking a heroin habit in 1965, is his primary passion between shows. For Charles, it is a game of touch as well as tactics, and he uses a specially designed board with raised black squares and pegged pieces, his fingers a blur as he surveys the field. His play is defensive. "He sets little traps and sits and waits for you to fall for them," says Vernon Troupe, 50, his valet and constant companion. "Then he pounces."
Charles is just as exacting in real life. "I truly love Mr. C., but working for him is not easy," says Troupe. "If his tuxedos are not pressed a certain way or his food is not just so, somebody has to know the reason why. And if he says he'll be ready at 10 o'clock, he means 10, not one minute before or after."
Off the road, Charles returns to a sparsely furnished apartment in Beverly Hills and doesn't socialize much. "If you get more than three or four people around me, you've got a crowd," he says. A windowless office complex near downtown L.A. is headquarters for his personal manager, Joe Adams, and houses a private recording studio, which Charles considers his real home.
Inviting a guest into this sanctum recently, Charles had to be reminded to turn on the light. He was cautious and reserved at first when asked to talk about himself. Soon, however, he pranced and preached as he recalled his country upbringing in Greenville, Fla.
Christened Ray Charles Robinson (he later dropped the surname to avoid confusion with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson), he was the son of Bailey Robinson, a railroad repairman who was seldom around and never married Ray's mother, 'Retha. She took in washing and ironing to support her two children and shared child raising with Bailey's legal wife, Mary Jane. "Mary Jane had a child of her own but he died, so she took a liking to me," Charles says. "With Mary Jane I couldn't do wrong. I was her pet. But my mother made sure I did right."
Despite the decades that have passed, Charles still talks of his joy on those nights when he would awake to a full moon in the sky before his world went black. "Other nights I'd wake up and it would be pitch dark," he says. "So I'd go out with a big flashlight and light up the world."
On Sundays he sang at the Shiloh Baptist Church, but there was other music as well—at the Red Wing Café where the proprietor, Wylie Pitman, kept the jukebox stocked with records by Muddy Waters, Blind Boy Phillips and Tampa Red. "Mr. Pit also had a piano," says Charles. "As a little kid I'd go in and start banging on it, and the man could have easily shooed me away. Instead he'd take my fingers, one by one, and show me a little melody."
When he was 5, the bright and simple days began to end. Ray was playing in the backyard one afternoon when he saw his 3½-year-old brother, George, topple into a washtub. "He must have dropped something in the water and keeled over trying to get it," he says. "I tried to pull him out, but he was too heavy. I went into the house to get my mom, but it was too late."
A few months later, Charles's eyes started tearing and his sight gradually slipped away, stolen by a disease his country doctor could not name, let alone cure. Within two years he was totally blind. "People couldn't understand why my mama would have this blind kid out doing things like cutting wood for the fire," he says now. "But she had the foresight to go against the grain in this little town. Her thing was: 'He may be blind, but he ain't stupid.' That's why I brag on my mama today."
For the next eight years he boarded at a state school for the blind in St. Augustine, Fla., where he studied classical music and played blues and boogie in his spare time. Then his mother died suddenly, apparently a victim of food poisoning. Lost and alone, Ray lay motionless for a week following her funeral before finally breaking into tears.
He was just 15, but he decided to set out on his own and to try to earn his way as a pianist. "I had to leave Greenville because there was nothing I could do," he says simply. "And I wasn't about to be begging nobody because I wasn't raised that way. My mom would have died 15 deaths if I did that."
Instead he traveled through Florida playing in pickup bands and living on sardines and beans. "I didn't have somebody looking out for me 24 hours," he says. "You understand what I'm saying? I had to walk around by my goddamn self if I wanted to go." Finally, he asked a friend to take a map of the United States and locate a big city as far away as possible from Tampa. Within days he was rumbling toward Seattle by bus. "I didn't know anything about the town," he says. "But I figured it had to be a place where at least I'd have a better chance."
A few months short of 18 when he arrived, he entered a talent contest his first night in town and was immediately offered a job playing at a local Elks club. After several months, he caught the ear of a record producer and cut his first single, "Confession Blues." As his reputation grew, Charles became the idol of a teenage trumpet player with considerable gifts of his own. "Ray's apartment was the place to be because he had his own record player," says Quincy Jones, Ray's best friend still. "He used to take it apart and get shocked and stuff. He was just curious about everything."
During the next few years Charles lived on the road, making the rounds of black honky-tonks and beer halls around the country. Musicians called it the chitlin' circuit. "People didn't sit on their asses," Charles says. "They came to dance. If somebody got too close to somebody else's woman, it was nothing to have a fight break out and bottles start flying." For a long time he was content to copy the style of such established stars as Nat King Cole. People praised his mimicry, "and I thought it was great," he says. "But as I was shaving one morning, I thought, 'Who knows your name?' "
Soon he began combining gospel styling with down-and-dirty lyrics and horn riffs, and folks everywhere came to know who he was. "The black church is the ultimate source of American music," says Quincy Jones. "Ray got the mothership together with its grandbabies, blues and jazz, and touched the world." In the process he created a new genre of music; it came to be called soul, and at first "some people said it was sacrilegious," Charles says. "But it was me. And most people loved it."
In the '60s he went further, turning tired country standards like "I Can't Stop Loving You" into pop hits by embellishing them with lush orchestral arrangements and his own plaintive vocals. Critics were confounded by his landmark LP, Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music. But Charles had listened to Grand Ole Opry every Saturday as a kid and was only doing what felt natural.
Unfortunately that wasn't all that he did; in the late '40s he had begun a heroin habit that he didn't break for 17 years. Despite the damage it eventually did to his reputation, he still refuses to be cast in the role of repentant sinner. "There wasn't nobody around saying, 'Hey, man, you want to get high, Ray?' I did drugs because it was my pleasure," he says. "Still, I never wanted to be so ossified I wasn't aware of what was going on around me. Being blind stopped me from that."
In 1964 Charles was busted for heroin possession at Boston's Logan Airport. While awaiting trial, he headed to California where, after attending a Little League banquet with his second wife, Della, and their 9-year-old son, Ray Jr., he began sizing up his future. "Before he got his little award, I had to leave for a recording session," Charles says. "So he started to cry. And I'm thinking, 'Now what's going to happen if somebody comes out and calls his daddy a jailbird or a drug addict?' That's when I decided I was through with drugs." He checked himself into a hospital and went cold turkey. After random testing for a year proved he was clean, the drug rap against him in Boston was dropped.
"Ray was always a good provider and loving father," says Della, now 61. Despite their 1977 divorce, Della still treats Charles to pound cake and homemade ice cream every year on his birthday and bears him no ill will. "People see his guarded side." says Della. "But you have to remember the people he loved the most as a child—his brother and his mother—were taken away from him. That's why he's cautious about letting people get too close." Ray Jr., now 35, has become more intimate with his dad recently since Charles hired him to oversee plans for a feature movie about his life. "I used to be intimidated by my father," says Ray Jr. "He is not a patient man. But he is teaching me a lot about discipline."
Patience is in short supply for Charles as he rehearses with the Philip Morris Super-band in New York two days before going on tour. Song after song, he has been scolding the musicians like a schoolmaster, sometimes cursing under his breath. "It don't matter how it's written, honey," he says when one band member complains about his illegible sheet music, "because I'm here to tell you for myself."
The next day his fellow headliner, blues guitarist B.B. King, jokes about a time he provoked Ray's ire in the studio a couple of years ago. "Ray said, 'Now B.B., you a musician and a singer. Can't you hear?' " King recalls. "But you know, Ray is right every time he tells you something."
Charles's own sharp hearing is legendary among his fellow musicians, but the gift was temporarily affected four years ago by an inner-ear infection that gave him the fright of his life. "It would be a real bitch if I ever lost my hearing," he says. "I know I couldn't be no Helen Keller. I think that would be worse than death."
Only slightly less terrifying, it seems, is the thought of retirement. "I don't want to retire to nothing," he says firmly, leaving no question. And so he works and plays and continues on, lending his voice and soul to yet one more generation. He will tour South America and Japan with his own band before the end of the year and has long-range plans to do an all-star recording session that will include jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Milt Jackson. "I figure you do what you can, while you can, on this earth, because you can bet your ass you're gonna leave here," he says. "Ain't no doubt about that."
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Ray Charles Issue 1995
If you're looking for Ray Charles on an evening where he plays two 55 minute shows, you can probably find him in one of two places: seated in front of a piano or chessboard, In fact, the trim, 5'9" legendary "Genius of Soul" feels at home in front of either board, regardless of how many people are watching. Most people can picture Ray with his black sunglasses and captivating smile sitting in front of a piano, yet the image of this blind musician looking with his hands at a chess board may raise a few questions. Like, how?
If you're looking for Ray Charles on an evening where he plays two 55 minute shows, you can probably find him in one of two places: seated in front of a piano or chessboard, In fact, the trim, 5'9" legendary "Genius of Soul" feels at home in front of either board, regardless of how many people are watching. Most people can picture Ray with his black sunglasses and captivating smile sitting in front of a piano, yet the image of this blind musician looking with his hands at a chess board may raise a few questions. Like, how?
In a game where skill and determination weed out the more proficient players, chess can be easily adapted to the needs of the visually impaired. For instance, Ray plays on a board where each square is the same color but the depth of the squares are altered-- the "black" squares are raised while the "white" squares are lowered. In addition, the black pieces may have sharper tops, whereas the white ones are flat, and all pieces include a peg on the bottom that fit into any hole drilled into the squares on the board. In order to make the game a bit more user-friendly, you will probably hear Ray Charles and his partner calling out moves as the game progresses, making this type of chess a louder, more interactive experience.
Ray has managed to recruit a few of his band members, friends, and even interviewers to play a chess game in between gigs on tour. As he sips warm coffee with Bols gin, he is comfortably removed from long months on the road promoting his latest album.
Brother Ray, as he is affectionately called, has certainly put his time in on the road. In his musical career of over 47 years, Ray has successfully mastered the blues, jazz, gospel, rock, pop, and country music continually airing his soulful heart. He has teamed up with the best of the best in each stylistic genre, including BB King, Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and, most recently, Eric Clapton. Ray prefers not to describe himself as a specific kind of singer, just a musician. "I'm not a country singer. I'm a singer who sings country songs. I'm not a blues singer, but I can sing the blues. I'm not really a crooner, but I can sing love songs. I'm not a specialist, but I'm a pretty good utility man. I can play first base, second base, shortstop. I can catch and maybe even pitch a little."
Whether it be the blues king or the granddaddy of soul, you get the distinct feeling that Ray is singing what he knows. "His style of singing is born out of his style of talking," explains David Ritz, coauthor of Ray's autobiography, Brother Ray. "There are two moods which he exibits: extreme highs and extreme lows...When he is excited, he is an obsessive and poetic talker; he will chew your ear off until you are exhausted and beat. When he is down, he becomes non-verbal-- his responses are monosyllabic...Both moods are strong, and his sullen look will grip him as suddenly as his smile." But his wry sense of humor is enduring-- and endearing. Once, when booked into a glamorous Las Vegas hotel suite with a bed two steps up, he said: "You know, I think these people are trying to kill me." On the ceiling, above the bed, was a mirror. "Oh great!" he shot back when informed of the extra.
Ray Charles Robinsons' autobiography, Brother Ray, details Ray's life, which began on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia. He recounts his days as a country boy in Greenville, Florida (about 30 miles from the Georgia boarder) as the older of two boys cared for by his biological mother, OERetha, whom he called "Mama." OERetha and the boys treated one of his father's first wives, Mary Jane, like family, and Ray was known to refer to her as "Mother." Mary Jane lived nearby and occasionally cared for the boys as if they were her own. His father, Bailey Robinson, was rarely seen by Ray or his brother George. Bailey worked driving spikes on the railroad crossities in Florida and Georgia, hardly ever coming around to see the family. It was OERetha who brought home whatever pennies she could, doing chores for the local people in the neighborhood.
Ray speaks highly of his mama. To this day, he can clearly describe her looks and continues to praise her wisdom, love, and discipline. His experiences as a child were of complete love and acceptance, mixed with periods of loss and suffering. Early childhood memories include adventures in the colorful country with his brother George, and Sundays at the local Baptist Church-- Ray's first introduction to religion and music. And then he'll recall watching his four-year-old brother George accidentally drown in a washtub as he desperately tried to pull him out. Ray was only five then, and the most he could manage to do was scream for his mama to help.
Up until he was about six, Ray's vision was normal. Over a period of time, images began to blur and he would spend five or ten minutes each morning wiping the mucas from his eyes as they adjusted to the light. During that year, OERetha has taken him to numerous doctors in the area, all of which concluded that Ray would be blind and there was nothing to be done about it. By the age of seven, with his mama's insistence, he reluctantly left home for a state-supported boarding school-- the nearest one being St. Augustine's for the blind and deaf, 160 miles away from home.
"Mama was a country woman with a whole lot of common sense. She understood what most of our neighbor's didn't-- that I shouldn't grow dependent on anyone except myself," Ray explains. "OEOne of these days, I ain't gonna be here,' she kept hammering inside my head. Meanwhile, she had me scrub floors, chop wood, wash clothes, and play outside like all the other kids...And her discipline didn't stop just OEcause I was blind. She wasn't about to let me get away with any foolishness."
Ray's new school separated the deaf from the blind, the black from the white, and the boys from the girls from ages six through eighteen. "It's awfully strange thinking about separating small children-- black from white-- when most of OEem can't even make out the difference between the two colors," Ray said.
It was a tough move for him to be so far from home at the time and he openly admits his crying. "I suppose I've always done my share of crying, especially when there's no other way to contain my feelings. I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling and feeling is being human. Oh yes, I cry."
He learned Braille and eventually sign language so the deaf kids could "speak" to him in the palms of his hands as he read their lips. It wasn't long before he was able to read books and work with his hands weaving and carving. The second part of the school year, Ray was taken to the hospital to have his right eye removed. It had been aching him badly, throbbing from morning to night. To this day, doctors can only speculate as to what the problem was, some saying perhaps glaucoma.
Brother Ray was always into music, whether it was pounding on Mr. Wylie Pittman's piano in the neighborhood store or simply listening to the jukebox. It was no surprise that his favorite subject in school was music instruction, which he started at the age of eight. The formal instruction began with exercises and classical pieces on the piano and, two years later, on the clarinet.
Being constantly attracted, and distracted, by music of all sorts, Ray discovered a variety of role models and musical styles. His keen sense of hearing and rhythm enabled him to pick up not only the instruments and melodies, but the arrangements how the horns, the reeds, and the rhythm were arranged in different sections. During the early forties, Ray was listening to the big bands with the rest of America, along with the middy Mississippi blues that were only avaiable on "race records." Determined and strong-willed, Ray would always find some way to sneak into the practice rooms at school after hours to practce.
Ray Charles' mama warned him over and over again that one day, she wouldn't be around, but nothing prepared Ray for the time when she passed away. He was only fifteen when he had to return home from school for his mother's funeral.
"When a boy has just one parent a mama he'll cling to her like she's life itself," expresses Charles in Brother Ray. "And he'll never even start thinking about what life would be like without her. The thought's too terrible...I was unable to deal with the facts of death; I was unable to accept the reality of death."
After his brother George had died, there was just mama. Now he was alone. "I had to make up my own mind, my own way, in my own time," explained Ray. "Never really had to do that before, and in many ways, I found the situation frightening. But that week of silence and suffering also made me harder, and that hardness has stayed with me the rest of my life."
Shortly thereafter, Ray dropped out of high school and moved to Jacksonville, Florida. His intention in scuffling through Jacksonville was to get some live musical experience in the big city. Ray responded to his new surroundings by seeking out any piano he could find. "it was music which drove me; it was my greatest pleasure and my greatest release. It was how I expressed myself."
It was about this time Ray Charles Robinson ended up shortening his name, so he wouldn't be confused with "Sugar Ray" Robinson, the popular boxer of the time. Staying downtown with some friends of Mary Jane, Ray would jam at any gig he could get. He would manage to memorize his way around town, paying little attention to things like drainage pipes, sewers, or cracks in the sidewalk.
Ray was always pretty courageous. When he was ten or eleven, he rode a bicycle on practucally every dirt road and path in Greenville. During a summer in Tallahassee, the fifteeen-year-old daredevil learned how to ride a motorcycle. He loved the feeling of motion and just like getting around Jacksonvile or any other town, "being blind wasn't gonna stop me...somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I wasn't going to hurt myselfI always had a lot of faith in my ability not to break my neck." Ray's hearing is exceptional, and his instincts are sharp. "I suppose that one proof of the rightness of my attitude is that as a kid, I was never seriously hurt and there were only a few close calls," he comments.
Ray's acute hearing proved to be quite an asset to his career as well. Though the ability to sing, play, write music and network his way around the clubs barely put food on the table at first, nothing could contain Ray's passion for music. After Jacksonville, it was Orlando, then Seattle, and by 1948, his first album was released. At the time, Ray Charles was most influenced by his idols, Nat Cole and Charles Brown. Ray recalls, "But as I was shaving one morning, I thought, OEWho knows your name?'" Gradually, his own style developed.
It wasn't long before Ray Charles was forging the gospel with the blues. His earliest tangible result of that was "I Got a Woman" for Ahmet Ertegun and Atlantic Records in 1954. Record producer Jerry Wexler described Brother Ray's voice then: "The emerging sound was unmistakable, brand-new, yet ancient as the woods, the country church of Ray's childhood. The breakthrough was close at hand."
And so began the "Genius of Soul," a hybrid sound that introduces God's voice to man's feelings, which certainly raised a few eyebrows for a while. Ray continued to experiment with his new style. Big bands, small bands, solo, and a variety of backup choruses have spotted his long career. He has also been fortunate enough to work without interference from record companies through the years and be able to choose his own songs.
"I am very into lyrics," Ray explains. "I start with what the words are saying, what the storyline is saying, like a good script. It should really capture me, do something for me. If I don't get it, it's not going to move people, and if it's not going to move people, it's not going to happen. I don't think I'm good because I'm blind, I think I'm good because I'm good."
At one point, stage manager Carl Hunter explained that "he'd [Charles] know it if the band missed a note, a single note. He'd know it if the drummer's left shoelace was flapping. You be with us long enough, you'll swear the man can see." In a performance, Ray's body moves to a different part of the music, but his feet provide the most deft, airbone accompaniment. It's his feet that give the backbeat, the downbeat, the accents, and the tempo; it's the way Ray conducts. In fact, this way of conducting is so powerful that "in rehearsal, if you walk between the band and his feet, they all start cursing you," said Carl.
Ray's publicist, Bob Abrams, says, "You know you're getting a good show when Ray's socks fall down...his feet are going up over the piano. One sock falls half-mast. It's because of all the energy he expands. That's his exercise."
Brother Ray's latest album/CD, "My World," is yet another example of his timeless musical talent. His mix of socially conscious songs with pop standards display a very contemporary side of Ray. There are songs about concern for families and children, as well as peace and unity on the planet.
"Music is powerful," Ray says. "As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond. But when I was doing this album, I wasn't trying to create an overall message. It just turned out that we got some songs that had something to say." And Ray, along with his all-star cast for some of his songs (like Billy Preston, Mavis Staples, and Eric Clapton), continues his musical experiments this time using synthesizers, sound samplers, and drum machines.
This open attitude keeps Ray current with his fans. During the 1980's and 90's, he caught the attention of a whole new generation with his popular "California Raisin" and Pepsi ("Uh huh") commercials. In fact, the first Diet Pepsi commercial in the fall of 1990 proved to be so unexpectedly popular that Ray Charles is taking home an estimated $3 million from Pepsi after renegotiating his original one-year contract. And for those that missed it, photo "opportunities" were available with life-size cutout figures of Ray Charles and the Raeletts at selected supermarkets last year.
"I must say, I'm proud of that commercial," explains Ray, in his fifth year as spokesperson for Pepsi.
And what about those three sexy background singers dubbed the Reaeletts? Well, Ray has never been one to hold back with women. Next to music, women have always been the major objects of his attention. In Brother Ray, he tells us that no day is worth starting without a love, and many of his songs have been regarded as a sort of report of his fortunes and misfortunes with women.
Battling substance abuse for a number of years, Ray finally enrolled in the rehabiltation program at St. Francis hospital near Los Angeles in 1965. His decision to go cold turkey is an example of his committment to himself, and after overcoming his physical and psychological addiction in his own way, he left the hospital. It was at St. Francis that Ray learned how to play chess and continued to play cards in Braille.
Ray's most recent bout with pain was a serious maddening of inner-ear problems. "I was hearing sound within sounds," he says. For a man that relies so heavily on his hearing, this proved to be quite a scare. Although his problems have since been resolved, Ray felt motivated enough to become involved with groups like Ear International, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization for the hearing disabled. His personal donations and fund raising have provided money for research in developing electronic implants, among other devices.
In futhering his dedication to the hearing impaired, Ray urged Congress to increase funding for research into hearing loss in 1987. His visit to Washington, D.C. included speaking before the subcommittees for Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, saying: "Most people take their hearing for granted. I can't. My eyes are my handicap, but my ears are my opportunity. My ears show me what my eyes can't. My ears tell me 99 percent of what I need to know about my world."
In addition to working with Ear International, Ray Charles has shown a long and active concern and involvement with sickle cell disease programs. In 1975, the National Association for Sickle Cell Disease (NASCD) presented their first "Man of Distinction" Award to Ray, and he continues as the L.A. chapter's Honorary Chairman since 1962.
What's next for this multi-talented entertainer? Well, as Ray himself articulates, "music is nothing separate from me. It is me. I can't retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver...I believe the Lord will retire me when He's ready. And then I'll have plenty of time for a long vacation."
Ray has managed to recruit a few of his band members, friends, and even interviewers to play a chess game in between gigs on tour. As he sips warm coffee with Bols gin, he is comfortably removed from long months on the road promoting his latest album.
Brother Ray, as he is affectionately called, has certainly put his time in on the road. In his musical career of over 47 years, Ray has successfully mastered the blues, jazz, gospel, rock, pop, and country music continually airing his soulful heart. He has teamed up with the best of the best in each stylistic genre, including BB King, Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and, most recently, Eric Clapton. Ray prefers not to describe himself as a specific kind of singer, just a musician. "I'm not a country singer. I'm a singer who sings country songs. I'm not a blues singer, but I can sing the blues. I'm not really a crooner, but I can sing love songs. I'm not a specialist, but I'm a pretty good utility man. I can play first base, second base, shortstop. I can catch and maybe even pitch a little."
Whether it be the blues king or the granddaddy of soul, you get the distinct feeling that Ray is singing what he knows. "His style of singing is born out of his style of talking," explains David Ritz, coauthor of Ray's autobiography, Brother Ray. "There are two moods which he exibits: extreme highs and extreme lows...When he is excited, he is an obsessive and poetic talker; he will chew your ear off until you are exhausted and beat. When he is down, he becomes non-verbal-- his responses are monosyllabic...Both moods are strong, and his sullen look will grip him as suddenly as his smile." But his wry sense of humor is enduring-- and endearing. Once, when booked into a glamorous Las Vegas hotel suite with a bed two steps up, he said: "You know, I think these people are trying to kill me." On the ceiling, above the bed, was a mirror. "Oh great!" he shot back when informed of the extra.
Ray Charles Robinsons' autobiography, Brother Ray, details Ray's life, which began on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia. He recounts his days as a country boy in Greenville, Florida (about 30 miles from the Georgia boarder) as the older of two boys cared for by his biological mother, OERetha, whom he called "Mama." OERetha and the boys treated one of his father's first wives, Mary Jane, like family, and Ray was known to refer to her as "Mother." Mary Jane lived nearby and occasionally cared for the boys as if they were her own. His father, Bailey Robinson, was rarely seen by Ray or his brother George. Bailey worked driving spikes on the railroad crossities in Florida and Georgia, hardly ever coming around to see the family. It was OERetha who brought home whatever pennies she could, doing chores for the local people in the neighborhood.
Ray speaks highly of his mama. To this day, he can clearly describe her looks and continues to praise her wisdom, love, and discipline. His experiences as a child were of complete love and acceptance, mixed with periods of loss and suffering. Early childhood memories include adventures in the colorful country with his brother George, and Sundays at the local Baptist Church-- Ray's first introduction to religion and music. And then he'll recall watching his four-year-old brother George accidentally drown in a washtub as he desperately tried to pull him out. Ray was only five then, and the most he could manage to do was scream for his mama to help.
Up until he was about six, Ray's vision was normal. Over a period of time, images began to blur and he would spend five or ten minutes each morning wiping the mucas from his eyes as they adjusted to the light. During that year, OERetha has taken him to numerous doctors in the area, all of which concluded that Ray would be blind and there was nothing to be done about it. By the age of seven, with his mama's insistence, he reluctantly left home for a state-supported boarding school-- the nearest one being St. Augustine's for the blind and deaf, 160 miles away from home.
"Mama was a country woman with a whole lot of common sense. She understood what most of our neighbor's didn't-- that I shouldn't grow dependent on anyone except myself," Ray explains. "OEOne of these days, I ain't gonna be here,' she kept hammering inside my head. Meanwhile, she had me scrub floors, chop wood, wash clothes, and play outside like all the other kids...And her discipline didn't stop just OEcause I was blind. She wasn't about to let me get away with any foolishness."
Ray's new school separated the deaf from the blind, the black from the white, and the boys from the girls from ages six through eighteen. "It's awfully strange thinking about separating small children-- black from white-- when most of OEem can't even make out the difference between the two colors," Ray said.
It was a tough move for him to be so far from home at the time and he openly admits his crying. "I suppose I've always done my share of crying, especially when there's no other way to contain my feelings. I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling and feeling is being human. Oh yes, I cry."
He learned Braille and eventually sign language so the deaf kids could "speak" to him in the palms of his hands as he read their lips. It wasn't long before he was able to read books and work with his hands weaving and carving. The second part of the school year, Ray was taken to the hospital to have his right eye removed. It had been aching him badly, throbbing from morning to night. To this day, doctors can only speculate as to what the problem was, some saying perhaps glaucoma.
Brother Ray was always into music, whether it was pounding on Mr. Wylie Pittman's piano in the neighborhood store or simply listening to the jukebox. It was no surprise that his favorite subject in school was music instruction, which he started at the age of eight. The formal instruction began with exercises and classical pieces on the piano and, two years later, on the clarinet.
Being constantly attracted, and distracted, by music of all sorts, Ray discovered a variety of role models and musical styles. His keen sense of hearing and rhythm enabled him to pick up not only the instruments and melodies, but the arrangements how the horns, the reeds, and the rhythm were arranged in different sections. During the early forties, Ray was listening to the big bands with the rest of America, along with the middy Mississippi blues that were only avaiable on "race records." Determined and strong-willed, Ray would always find some way to sneak into the practice rooms at school after hours to practce.
Ray Charles' mama warned him over and over again that one day, she wouldn't be around, but nothing prepared Ray for the time when she passed away. He was only fifteen when he had to return home from school for his mother's funeral.
"When a boy has just one parent a mama he'll cling to her like she's life itself," expresses Charles in Brother Ray. "And he'll never even start thinking about what life would be like without her. The thought's too terrible...I was unable to deal with the facts of death; I was unable to accept the reality of death."
After his brother George had died, there was just mama. Now he was alone. "I had to make up my own mind, my own way, in my own time," explained Ray. "Never really had to do that before, and in many ways, I found the situation frightening. But that week of silence and suffering also made me harder, and that hardness has stayed with me the rest of my life."
Shortly thereafter, Ray dropped out of high school and moved to Jacksonville, Florida. His intention in scuffling through Jacksonville was to get some live musical experience in the big city. Ray responded to his new surroundings by seeking out any piano he could find. "it was music which drove me; it was my greatest pleasure and my greatest release. It was how I expressed myself."
It was about this time Ray Charles Robinson ended up shortening his name, so he wouldn't be confused with "Sugar Ray" Robinson, the popular boxer of the time. Staying downtown with some friends of Mary Jane, Ray would jam at any gig he could get. He would manage to memorize his way around town, paying little attention to things like drainage pipes, sewers, or cracks in the sidewalk.
Ray was always pretty courageous. When he was ten or eleven, he rode a bicycle on practucally every dirt road and path in Greenville. During a summer in Tallahassee, the fifteeen-year-old daredevil learned how to ride a motorcycle. He loved the feeling of motion and just like getting around Jacksonvile or any other town, "being blind wasn't gonna stop me...somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I wasn't going to hurt myselfI always had a lot of faith in my ability not to break my neck." Ray's hearing is exceptional, and his instincts are sharp. "I suppose that one proof of the rightness of my attitude is that as a kid, I was never seriously hurt and there were only a few close calls," he comments.
Ray's acute hearing proved to be quite an asset to his career as well. Though the ability to sing, play, write music and network his way around the clubs barely put food on the table at first, nothing could contain Ray's passion for music. After Jacksonville, it was Orlando, then Seattle, and by 1948, his first album was released. At the time, Ray Charles was most influenced by his idols, Nat Cole and Charles Brown. Ray recalls, "But as I was shaving one morning, I thought, OEWho knows your name?'" Gradually, his own style developed.
It wasn't long before Ray Charles was forging the gospel with the blues. His earliest tangible result of that was "I Got a Woman" for Ahmet Ertegun and Atlantic Records in 1954. Record producer Jerry Wexler described Brother Ray's voice then: "The emerging sound was unmistakable, brand-new, yet ancient as the woods, the country church of Ray's childhood. The breakthrough was close at hand."
And so began the "Genius of Soul," a hybrid sound that introduces God's voice to man's feelings, which certainly raised a few eyebrows for a while. Ray continued to experiment with his new style. Big bands, small bands, solo, and a variety of backup choruses have spotted his long career. He has also been fortunate enough to work without interference from record companies through the years and be able to choose his own songs.
"I am very into lyrics," Ray explains. "I start with what the words are saying, what the storyline is saying, like a good script. It should really capture me, do something for me. If I don't get it, it's not going to move people, and if it's not going to move people, it's not going to happen. I don't think I'm good because I'm blind, I think I'm good because I'm good."
At one point, stage manager Carl Hunter explained that "he'd [Charles] know it if the band missed a note, a single note. He'd know it if the drummer's left shoelace was flapping. You be with us long enough, you'll swear the man can see." In a performance, Ray's body moves to a different part of the music, but his feet provide the most deft, airbone accompaniment. It's his feet that give the backbeat, the downbeat, the accents, and the tempo; it's the way Ray conducts. In fact, this way of conducting is so powerful that "in rehearsal, if you walk between the band and his feet, they all start cursing you," said Carl.
Ray's publicist, Bob Abrams, says, "You know you're getting a good show when Ray's socks fall down...his feet are going up over the piano. One sock falls half-mast. It's because of all the energy he expands. That's his exercise."
Brother Ray's latest album/CD, "My World," is yet another example of his timeless musical talent. His mix of socially conscious songs with pop standards display a very contemporary side of Ray. There are songs about concern for families and children, as well as peace and unity on the planet.
"Music is powerful," Ray says. "As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond. But when I was doing this album, I wasn't trying to create an overall message. It just turned out that we got some songs that had something to say." And Ray, along with his all-star cast for some of his songs (like Billy Preston, Mavis Staples, and Eric Clapton), continues his musical experiments this time using synthesizers, sound samplers, and drum machines.
This open attitude keeps Ray current with his fans. During the 1980's and 90's, he caught the attention of a whole new generation with his popular "California Raisin" and Pepsi ("Uh huh") commercials. In fact, the first Diet Pepsi commercial in the fall of 1990 proved to be so unexpectedly popular that Ray Charles is taking home an estimated $3 million from Pepsi after renegotiating his original one-year contract. And for those that missed it, photo "opportunities" were available with life-size cutout figures of Ray Charles and the Raeletts at selected supermarkets last year.
"I must say, I'm proud of that commercial," explains Ray, in his fifth year as spokesperson for Pepsi.
And what about those three sexy background singers dubbed the Reaeletts? Well, Ray has never been one to hold back with women. Next to music, women have always been the major objects of his attention. In Brother Ray, he tells us that no day is worth starting without a love, and many of his songs have been regarded as a sort of report of his fortunes and misfortunes with women.
Battling substance abuse for a number of years, Ray finally enrolled in the rehabiltation program at St. Francis hospital near Los Angeles in 1965. His decision to go cold turkey is an example of his committment to himself, and after overcoming his physical and psychological addiction in his own way, he left the hospital. It was at St. Francis that Ray learned how to play chess and continued to play cards in Braille.
Ray's most recent bout with pain was a serious maddening of inner-ear problems. "I was hearing sound within sounds," he says. For a man that relies so heavily on his hearing, this proved to be quite a scare. Although his problems have since been resolved, Ray felt motivated enough to become involved with groups like Ear International, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization for the hearing disabled. His personal donations and fund raising have provided money for research in developing electronic implants, among other devices.
In futhering his dedication to the hearing impaired, Ray urged Congress to increase funding for research into hearing loss in 1987. His visit to Washington, D.C. included speaking before the subcommittees for Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, saying: "Most people take their hearing for granted. I can't. My eyes are my handicap, but my ears are my opportunity. My ears show me what my eyes can't. My ears tell me 99 percent of what I need to know about my world."
In addition to working with Ear International, Ray Charles has shown a long and active concern and involvement with sickle cell disease programs. In 1975, the National Association for Sickle Cell Disease (NASCD) presented their first "Man of Distinction" Award to Ray, and he continues as the L.A. chapter's Honorary Chairman since 1962.
What's next for this multi-talented entertainer? Well, as Ray himself articulates, "music is nothing separate from me. It is me. I can't retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver...I believe the Lord will retire me when He's ready. And then I'll have plenty of time for a long vacation."
What really happened
October 22, 2004
It's a Shame About Ray
Why must biopics sentimentalize their subjects?
by David Ritz
SLATE
Ray, the new biopic directed by Taylor Hackford, satisfies in some wonderful ways: Jamie Foxx miraculously embodies Ray's soul; Ray's own musical voice sounds bigger and better than ever; and several of the supporting performances—Sharon Warren as Ray's mom and Regina King as Margie Hendricks—are heartfelt and powerful. The problem, though, is that Ray is a saccharine movie while Ray himself was anything but a saccharine man. He was a raging bull. Sentimentalizing his story may make box office sense, but, to my mind, it trivializes the compelling complexity of his character.
For example, the film focuses on Ray's relationship with his mother, Aretha. Yet the truth is that Ray had two mothers. According to what Ray told me and insisted we include in Brother Ray, an autobiography that I co-authored in 1978, two women dominated his early years: his biological mother, Aretha, and a woman named Mary Jane, one of his father's former wives. "I called Aretha 'Mama' and Mary Jane 'Mother,' " wrote Ray. After her 6-year-old son went blind, Aretha fostered his independence, while Mary Jane indulged him. For the rest of his life Ray was as fiercely self-reliant as he was self-indulgent. Two dynamic women, two radically different approaches to his sightlessness—you can imagine the impact on his character. Ray ignores this phenomenon completely.
Ray tries to explain Ray's blues—the angst in his heart—in heavy-handed Freudian terms. At age 5, Ray helplessly watched his younger brother, George, drown. The film insists that the guilt Ray felt for failing to rescue George is responsible for the dark side of his soul. Once the guilt is lifted, the adult Ray is not only free from his heroin habit but is liberated—in a treacly flashback—from his emotional turmoil. George's death was certainly traumatic for the young Ray, yet the only time Ray suffered what he termed a nervous breakdown had neither to do with the drowning nor the loss of his sight a year later. "It's the death of my mother Aretha," he told me, "that had me reeling. For days I couldn't talk, think, sleep or eat. I was sure-enough going crazy." That the film fails to dramatize the scene—we learn of Aretha's death in a quick aside from Ray to his wife-to-be—misses the crucial heartbreak of his early life. It happened when Ray was 15, living at a school for the blind 160 miles from home. "I knew my world had ended," he said. The further fact that Ray fails to include a single scene from his extraordinary educational experience is another grievous oversight. It was at that state school where he was taught to read Braille, play Chopin, write arrangements, learn piano and clarinet, start to sing, and discover sex. Ray shows none of that. Such scenes would have been far more illuminating than the unexciting story, which the film does include, of Ray changing managers in midcareer.
The minor characters are another major problem. Take David "Fathead" Newman, the saxophonist who, for over a decade, was Ray's closest musical and personal peer. In Ray, David is portrayed as little more than a loudmouthed junkie. While drugs were part of the bond between David and Ray, the key to their relationship was an extraordinary musical rapport. In real life, David is a soft-spoken, gentle man of few words. As Ray was boisterous, David was shy. Both were brought up on bebop. Like Lester Young/Billie Holiday or Thelonious Monk/Charlie Rouse, they complemented each other in exquisitely sensitive fashion. We neither see nor hear any of this in Ray. And while Hackford features a great number of Ray's hits, he ignores the jazz side of Ray's musical makeup. There's virtually no jazz in Ray, while in real life jazz sat at the center of Ray's soul.
If Fathead is painfully misrepresented, Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, owners of Atlantic Records, suffer a similar fate. Among the most colorful characters in the colorful history of the music business, they are reduced to stereotypes. We don't get a glimpse of their quirky sophistication, sharp intellect, or salty wit. Same goes for Mary Ann Fisher, the first female singer to join Ray's band. Mary Ann was an engaging character—sometimes endearing, sometimes infuriating. In Ray she's just a manipulative tart.
Finally, though, Ray is about Ray, and its attempt to define his character. In many ways, the definition is accurate. Foxx brilliantly captures Ray's energy and contradictions. Yet those contradictions are not allowed to stand. The contradictions must be resolved, Ray must live happily ever after. The finale implies that, for all his promiscuity, he is back with Della, the true love of his life, and that, with his heroin habit behind him, it's smooth sailing ahead. The paradoxical strands of his life are tied up into a neat package, honoring the hackneyed biopic formula with a leave-'em-smiling Hollywood ending.
The truth is far more complex and far more interesting. Ray's womanizing ways continued. His marriage to Della ended in a difficult divorce in 1976. And while he never again got high on heroin, he found, in his own terms, "a different buzz to keep me going." For the rest of his life he unapologetically drank large quantities of gin every day and smoked large quantities of pot every night. While working on his autobiography he told me, "Just like smack never got in the way of my working, same goes for booze and reefer. What I do with my own body is my own business." Ray maintained this attitude until his health deteriorated. In 2003 he told me that he had been diagnosed with alcoholic liver disease and hepatitis C. "If I knew I was going to live this long," he added with an ironic smile, "I would have taken better care of myself." Whatever Ray was—headstrong, joyful, courageous, cranky—he was hardly a spokesman for sobriety.
The producers of Ray make much of the fact that Ray himself endorsed the movie. That's certainly true. He wanted a successful crossover movie to mirror his successful crossover music. He participated and helped in any way he could. In one of our last discussions, Ray reminded me that the process of trying to sell Hollywood began 26 years ago when producer-director Larry Schiller optioned his story. Since then there have been dozens of false starts. It wasn't until his son, Ray Jr., producer Stuart Benjamin, and director Hackford stayed on the case that cameras rolled.
"Hollywood is a cold-blooded motherfucker," said Ray. "It's easier to bone the President's wife than to get a movie made. So I say God bless these cats. God bless Benjamin and Hackford and Ray Jr. Weren't for them, this would never happen. And now that it's happening, maybe I'll have a better chance of being remembered. I can't ask for anything more."
David Ritz wrote Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye and co-composed "Sexual Healing" with Marvin Gaye and Odell Brown.
For example, the film focuses on Ray's relationship with his mother, Aretha. Yet the truth is that Ray had two mothers. According to what Ray told me and insisted we include in Brother Ray, an autobiography that I co-authored in 1978, two women dominated his early years: his biological mother, Aretha, and a woman named Mary Jane, one of his father's former wives. "I called Aretha 'Mama' and Mary Jane 'Mother,' " wrote Ray. After her 6-year-old son went blind, Aretha fostered his independence, while Mary Jane indulged him. For the rest of his life Ray was as fiercely self-reliant as he was self-indulgent. Two dynamic women, two radically different approaches to his sightlessness—you can imagine the impact on his character. Ray ignores this phenomenon completely.
Ray tries to explain Ray's blues—the angst in his heart—in heavy-handed Freudian terms. At age 5, Ray helplessly watched his younger brother, George, drown. The film insists that the guilt Ray felt for failing to rescue George is responsible for the dark side of his soul. Once the guilt is lifted, the adult Ray is not only free from his heroin habit but is liberated—in a treacly flashback—from his emotional turmoil. George's death was certainly traumatic for the young Ray, yet the only time Ray suffered what he termed a nervous breakdown had neither to do with the drowning nor the loss of his sight a year later. "It's the death of my mother Aretha," he told me, "that had me reeling. For days I couldn't talk, think, sleep or eat. I was sure-enough going crazy." That the film fails to dramatize the scene—we learn of Aretha's death in a quick aside from Ray to his wife-to-be—misses the crucial heartbreak of his early life. It happened when Ray was 15, living at a school for the blind 160 miles from home. "I knew my world had ended," he said. The further fact that Ray fails to include a single scene from his extraordinary educational experience is another grievous oversight. It was at that state school where he was taught to read Braille, play Chopin, write arrangements, learn piano and clarinet, start to sing, and discover sex. Ray shows none of that. Such scenes would have been far more illuminating than the unexciting story, which the film does include, of Ray changing managers in midcareer.
The minor characters are another major problem. Take David "Fathead" Newman, the saxophonist who, for over a decade, was Ray's closest musical and personal peer. In Ray, David is portrayed as little more than a loudmouthed junkie. While drugs were part of the bond between David and Ray, the key to their relationship was an extraordinary musical rapport. In real life, David is a soft-spoken, gentle man of few words. As Ray was boisterous, David was shy. Both were brought up on bebop. Like Lester Young/Billie Holiday or Thelonious Monk/Charlie Rouse, they complemented each other in exquisitely sensitive fashion. We neither see nor hear any of this in Ray. And while Hackford features a great number of Ray's hits, he ignores the jazz side of Ray's musical makeup. There's virtually no jazz in Ray, while in real life jazz sat at the center of Ray's soul.
If Fathead is painfully misrepresented, Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, owners of Atlantic Records, suffer a similar fate. Among the most colorful characters in the colorful history of the music business, they are reduced to stereotypes. We don't get a glimpse of their quirky sophistication, sharp intellect, or salty wit. Same goes for Mary Ann Fisher, the first female singer to join Ray's band. Mary Ann was an engaging character—sometimes endearing, sometimes infuriating. In Ray she's just a manipulative tart.
Finally, though, Ray is about Ray, and its attempt to define his character. In many ways, the definition is accurate. Foxx brilliantly captures Ray's energy and contradictions. Yet those contradictions are not allowed to stand. The contradictions must be resolved, Ray must live happily ever after. The finale implies that, for all his promiscuity, he is back with Della, the true love of his life, and that, with his heroin habit behind him, it's smooth sailing ahead. The paradoxical strands of his life are tied up into a neat package, honoring the hackneyed biopic formula with a leave-'em-smiling Hollywood ending.
The truth is far more complex and far more interesting. Ray's womanizing ways continued. His marriage to Della ended in a difficult divorce in 1976. And while he never again got high on heroin, he found, in his own terms, "a different buzz to keep me going." For the rest of his life he unapologetically drank large quantities of gin every day and smoked large quantities of pot every night. While working on his autobiography he told me, "Just like smack never got in the way of my working, same goes for booze and reefer. What I do with my own body is my own business." Ray maintained this attitude until his health deteriorated. In 2003 he told me that he had been diagnosed with alcoholic liver disease and hepatitis C. "If I knew I was going to live this long," he added with an ironic smile, "I would have taken better care of myself." Whatever Ray was—headstrong, joyful, courageous, cranky—he was hardly a spokesman for sobriety.
The producers of Ray make much of the fact that Ray himself endorsed the movie. That's certainly true. He wanted a successful crossover movie to mirror his successful crossover music. He participated and helped in any way he could. In one of our last discussions, Ray reminded me that the process of trying to sell Hollywood began 26 years ago when producer-director Larry Schiller optioned his story. Since then there have been dozens of false starts. It wasn't until his son, Ray Jr., producer Stuart Benjamin, and director Hackford stayed on the case that cameras rolled.
"Hollywood is a cold-blooded motherfucker," said Ray. "It's easier to bone the President's wife than to get a movie made. So I say God bless these cats. God bless Benjamin and Hackford and Ray Jr. Weren't for them, this would never happen. And now that it's happening, maybe I'll have a better chance of being remembered. I can't ask for anything more."
David Ritz wrote Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye and co-composed "Sexual Healing" with Marvin Gaye and Odell Brown.
LEGENDS OF AMERICAN MUSIC HISTORY
SwingMusic.Net Biography
Ray Charles
SwingMusic.Net Biography
Ray Charles
Crossed countless perceived musical boundaries throughout his career
The legendary performer, known since the 1950s as "The Genius," died June 10th, 2004 of liver disease.
| Ray Charles + American Music = Genius. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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. Young Ray grew up during the Great Depression, a period when there was almost no such thing as financial gain for anyone and particularly a black family living in the totally segregated South.
Charles recalled how poor his family was in his 1978 autobiography, "Brother Ray": "Even compared to other blacks...we were on the bottom of the ladder looking up at everyone else. Nothing below us except the ground.''
Although it was a poor existence, and his father was "hardly ever around", he described himself as a "happy kid". The tragedy and painful memories of the next several years however would change him forever.
At just five years old Charles had to endure the trauma of witnessing the drowning death of his younger brother in his mother's large portable laundry tub. Soon after the death of his brother he gradually began to lose his sight and by 7 years of age Ray Charles was blind. Although it is presumed that untreated glaucoma was the cause, no official diagnosis was ever made. His mother refused to let him wallow in self-pity however and since the sight loss was gradual, she began to work with him on how to find things and do things for himself.
Ray had shown an interest in music since the age of 3, encouraged by a cafe owner who played the piano. At 7, he became a charity student at the state-supported school for the deaf and blind in St. Augustine, Fla. Although he was heartbroken to be leaving home, it was at school where he received a formal musical education and learned to read, write and arrange music in Braille; score for big bands; and play piano, organ, sax, clarinet, and trumpet. His influences were the popular stars of the day like big band clarinetist Artie Shaw, big band leaders and pianists Duke Ellington and Count Basie, jazz piano giant Art Tatum, alto sax man and witty vocalist and bandleader Louis Jordan, and the great classical composers like Chopin and Sibelius. But Ray Charles loved it all. At night he listened on the radio to the raw melodies and hillbilly twang of the Grand Ole Opry, to the sanctified soulfulness of gospel, and to the secular emotional venting of the blues. Then at 15 his mother died and Charles, who said he never used a cane or guide dog or begged for money, left school and began touring the South on the so-called chitlin' circuit with a number of dance bands that played in black dance halls.
In the South in 1945 the opportunities and outlook for any young black musician, just getting started and hoping for a career in music, would have been bleak. Add Mr. Charles' loss of sight and newfound love for heroin (a habit he did not kick for nearly 20 years) and one would think the situation to be nearly hopeless. But Charles would not be denied and rather than give up, he made a significant geographical relocation to Seattle, Washington. It was in Seattle's red light district at just 16 were he met a young Quincy Jones only 14 himself. He taught the future producer and composer how to write music and arrange. It was a friendship that lasted a lifetime with the two working on many sessions together later in their careers.
Ray Charles Robinson dropped his last name to avoid confusion with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson and patterned himself in his early career after Nat "King" Cole. His first 3 recordings were made in Tampa, Florida in 1947 and included Guitar Blues, Walkin' And Talkin,' and Wonderin' And Wonderin'. With a recording contract in 1949 on the former Downbeat label, but at the time under the Swingtime banner, Charles and his trio (called the McSon Trio) moved to Los Angeles and cut numerous sides on which the influence of King Cole is clearly evident including the somewhat autobiographical All To Myself Alone and a medium tempo jiver called Let's Have A Ball. During the early 1950s, the trio released several singles including Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand, which hit the U.S. R&B chart.
In 1952, Atlantic Records signed him to a contract although his first recordings with the label were not made until May of the next year.
Charles got his first taste of commercial success in 1953, when he arranged and played piano on bluesman Guitar Slim's recording of The Things That I Used to Do, which sold more than a million copies.
In 1994 he told the San Jose Mercury News, "When I started to sing like myself - as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while - when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it."
The real Ray Charles emerged in 1954 on a record called I Got A Woman. The recording reached #1 on the R&B chart in 1955. More significantly it brought together elements of gospel music in a secular setting, in a way they had never been married before, and served to spawn a whole new genre later to become known as Soul. On this record Charles began singing with inner emotional intensity like never before by way of hoots, hollers and other genuinely enthusiastic voicings. He had finally put to use the advice his mother had given him years before to "just be yourself."
Much the same as his early idol Nat King Cole achieved fame with his vocals, so Ray Charles finally broke through to white America. But in the years preceding 1959's smash What'd I Say, like Nat Cole, Ray Charles first cut some superb jazz sides. Many recordings done for Atlantic in the mid to late 1950s, some arranged by old friend Quincy Jones, are among his finest in the mainstream jazz idiom. Sessions in November of 1956 produced such gems as Doodlin' Parts 1&2, Rockhouse Parts 1&2, The Ray, Hornful Soul, and Sweet Sixteen Bars. These recordings were all instrumentals and most featured reedman David Fathead Newman who became another lifelong friend.
By the late 1950s Charles was being called "The Genius." In September of 1957 he recorded an album called Soul Meeting with members of the Modern Jazz Quartet and featuring vibraphonist Milt Jackson. In April of 1958 he got together with Jackson again. This time the vibraphonist was flanked by guitarist Kenny Burrell, bass man Percy Heath and drummer Arthur Taylor for the release Soul Brothers. On the cut X-Ray Blues Charles recalled his roots at St. Augustine and played a reed instrument, the alto saxophone. It is one of the only instances of Charles playing the instrument on record.
This foray into jazz landed Charles, accompanied by his rhythm section, David Fathead Newman, his back-up vocal group The Raelets, Bennie Crawford, Marcus Belgrave and Lee Harper, smack dab in the middle of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in July of 1958.
While this success would be enough to make some settle down into a particular style or genre and rest on their laurels; such was not the case for the ramblin' Ray Charles. In February of the same year he recorded a song combining a Latin-esque blues riff, with gospel call-and-response vocals between himself and the Raelets, and blatantly suggestive and playful lyrics and attitude. What resulted was a million selling monster hit called What'd I Say, which ran more than six minutes in its LP form. The song became one of Charles' signature tunes and was his first crossover hit, reaching #6 on the Pop chart and #1 on the R&B chart in 1959.
Still Charles turned back to jazz and big band again for two sessions in May and June of 1959. These sessions were combined together for the release The Genius Of Ray Charles. Half of the album featured backing instrumentation by Quincy Jones who directed an all-star big band consisting of numerous Count Basie alumni for the release. This combination of talents provided Charles with a hip and swinging backdrop on a number of standards and cover tunes. The release garnered Charles two of his first four Grammy Awards in 1960; one in the Best Rhythm & Blues Performance category for Let The Good Times Roll (a cover tune of one of his early influences Louis Jordan); and another in the Best Vocal Performance Album, Male category.
On June 26th, 1959 Charles cut his first country cover when he recorded the song I'm Movin' On, originally done by Hank Snow. Perhaps it was irony that this would be his last session for Atlantic, as move on he did. Charles, by 1959, had posted some 20 hits on the R&B charts. This coupled with the crossover success of What'd I Say allowed him to move from Atlantic to the larger ABC Paramount label late in the year.
One of the chief attractions of the ABC deal for Charles was a much greater degree of artistic control of his recordings. His first session with ABC in December of 1959 produced just three recordings but his next session in March of 1960 was a superb success. The album that resulted was a geographical theme album called The Genius Hits The Road. One of the twelve songs on the original pressing of the LP (ABC 335) was a Hoagy Carmichael tune. The Ray Charles version of the piece was declared the official song of the state of Georgia in 1979. Georgia On My Mind garnered Charles two more Grammy Awards at the 1960 ceremony in the Best Vocal Performance Single Record or Track, Male, and Best Performance by a Pop Single Artist categories.
In August of 1960 Charles recorded the second of a number of theme albums for ABC Paramount called Dedicated To You on which all of the song’s titles contained a woman's name. The idea of theme albums, with tunes tied together by a particular common subject matter, was not new. Many artists who trod down the theme path did so with varying degrees of success, as was the case with Charles. However his fortune with theme albums began well when the string-laden Marty Paich arrangement of Ruby charted for five weeks near the end of 1960.
With Charles achieving commercial success with his ballads like Georgia On My Mind and Ruby you would think that, like Nat King Cole, he might abandon recording jazz or R&B tunes. But in December of 1960, little more than two weeks after Ruby had peaked on the chart, he was in the ABC Paramount studios again. What resulted was arguably his best jazz album ever. This one found "The Genius" singing and playing Hammond B3. Once again he received expert backing by a number of Count Basie alumni on several Quincy Jones arrangements. The release was called Genius+Soul=Jazz and yet again the public responded. The cut, One Mint Julep went to #8 on the pop chart and #1 on the R&B chart in 1961. Although One Mint Julep may have been the hit, the album featured other tastefully swinging tunes like Mr. C., Stompin' Room Only, From The Heart, and a Ralph Burns arrangement of a blues called I've Got News For You.
His next chart hit in 1961 was even bigger. Hit The Road Jack topped both the Pop chart, where it stayed at #1 for two weeks in October, and the R&B chart for 5 weeks beginning October 2nd. The recording also won a Grammy in 1961 for the Best Rhythm and Blues Recording. Amazingly, it was yet to be released on an LP when it garnered such high accolades, evidence of the power of the 45 RPM record medium in 1961. Hit The Road Jack was originally released on just a two-song 45 RPM (ABC-Paramount 10244) and a four song extended play 7" jukebox 45 RPM called The Genius Hits The Road (ABC Paramount Records EP19), not to be confused with the LP bearing the same name. It was not until 1962 that the song was released on an LP (ABC 415) called Ray Charles Greatest Hits.
Then Charles did what, to many, was the unthinkable; he tackled country and western music. And not only did he tackle it, he conquered it and forever changed its face when on June 1st, 1962 the landmark album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music was released. On this LP Charles re-interpreted some of the greatest songs written in the country music field, filling them with newfound energy and soul. In doing so, he inspired other artists to reconsider their thoughts and assessments of country tunes. It also beckoned to a wide range of music fans to come in and sit a spell and hear what country music and country songwriters had to offer.
Although he had a hit in 1959 with the aforementioned single cover of Hank Snow's I'm Movin' On, his decision to record a full album of country songs was initially discouraged by his record label and by others around him.
Charles said later that he knew it was risky business recording a country album. "I didn't know what was going to happen," he said, "because all my friends and people around me was telling me I was making a big mistake because 'you're doing country-western music. Oh, man you're going to ruin your career 'cause everybody know you're from rhythm and blues, and you're going to go out, oh, you've got to be nuts."
The album covered a broad spectrum of what the country music song book had to offer at the time including the Everly Brothers' Bye Bye, Love, Hank Williams Sr.' Half As Much, You Win Again and Hey, Good Lookin', Don Gibson's hit of I Can't Stop Loving You, and Eddy Arnold's Just a Little Lovin' and You Don't Know Me.
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music was #1 on the Billboard Pop Album chart for three and a half months and stayed on that chart for two years. The album's producer, ABC-Paramount A&R director Sid Feller, said about the album's initial splash, "I didn't know that a Pop artist could do country songs and become a national monument. You know how unimportant it seemed? I put I Can't Stop Loving You in the number 5 position on the B-side of the album." Four singles from the album were released. Born to Lose, Careless Love and You Don't Know Me all charted Pop, but I Can't Stop Loving You was a #1 Pop hit for five weeks.
After the phenomenal success of the first country album, another one was inevitable. Enter Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music Volume 2 recorded in September of 1962. Surprisingly enough the sequel was just as solid as the original, and more varied. It went to #2 on the Album chart, powered by two singles: the ancient standard You Are My Sunshine, redone as a powerhouse R&B, and a soul filled, slow reading of Take These Chains From My Heart. One of the surprising facts about Charles' forays into the world of country and western music was the success of many of the songs on the R&B chart. You Are My Sunshine, maxed out at #7 on the Pop chart, but went all the way to #1 on the R&B chart in 1962. In 1963, Take These Chains From My Heart went to #8 Pop and #7 R&B.
On July 10th and 13th of the following year the release Ingredients In A Recipe For Soul was recorded and Charles had another hit single on his hands with Busted. Country songwriter Harlan Howard wrote the song however it was not done in a style resembling country and western. Instead it was given treatment by one of the greatest big band arrangers and jazz songwriters of all time, himself a consummate player and genius in his own right, the great Benny Carter. Carter created a bluesy big band backdrop for Charles' soulful reading of the piece, as was the case with a number of scores for the LP. In 1963, Busted made it to #4 on the Pop chart and was voted best Rhythm And Blues Recording by the Grammy committee.
Sixteen songs were recorded on the incredibly productive aforementioned July 13th session. Of the sixteen, several other recordings featuring Benny Carter arrangements were laid down as well as some Gerald Wilson and Johnny Parker scores. Although some of the songs were somewhat trite in lyrical content, nine were used on a 1964 release called Have A Smile With Me. Also appearing on the LP (but recorded a year later in July of 1964) was a single, which the great Benny Carter again arranged, called Smack Dab In The Middle. Smack Dab In The Middle, with its Raelets backing, was one of the highlights of the LP. However the song that makes the album worth owning is Charles' cover of an old Hank Williams tune. The peppy, humorous and carefree Move It On Over is a song about a man who is cast (literally) into the doghouse by his "little baby." Mr. Charles sounds in high spirits on the whole album, with an excellent swinging big band behind him, but on Move It On Over the energy and mood both come together in a roaring climax. In the 1980s George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers rather dryly covered the song, scoring a hit on AOR stations. Even with all of its amplification, the Thoroughgood version didn't come close to the big bang of energy emitted on this swinging Ray Charles gem.
During the 60s Charles became involved in films, appearing in the 1962's Swinging Along and recording soundtracks for several more. By 1964 he seemed on top of the world with his own label, an ABC imprint called Tangerine Records (which would release albums by Charles and his productions of vocalist-writer Percy Mayfield and singer Jimmy Scott). He also controlled his publishing and his masters. And he had opened his own L.A. studio, designed in part by Atlantic engineer Tom Dowd. But his personal life was coming apart.
On Oct. 31, 1964, he was busted in a Boston airport after customs officers found marijuana, heroin and a syringe in his overcoat. Charles, who had been arrested for drug possession earlier in Indianapolis and Philadelphia, was shaken and scared. Taking a year off from touring, he checked into a California sanitarium and kicked his junk habit. Charles celebrated with the late-1965 release of Crying Time, his No. 6 Pop cover of Buck Owens' country hit. The recording won two Grammys: for Best R&B Recording and Best R&B Solo Vocal Performance, Male. It proved to be his last top-10 Pop chart entry.
In December of 1966 he was convicted and given a five-year suspended sentence for his drug bust. Yet there was a sense of humor about even that as 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.
The 1970s began with a release on his Tangerine label called My Kind Of Jazz with longtime friend Quincy Jones. It was the source of his last Pop chart hit, intriguingly titled Booty Butt, which reached number 36 on the chart.
Also in the 1970s Charles made a stirring guest shot on Aretha Franklin's album Live at the Fillmore, and a hallmark pure-funk rendition of America the Beautiful on his 1972 collection A Message From the People. His output during this period also included work with singers Randy Newman and Stevie Wonder.
In 1976, he collaborated with English vocalist Cleo Laine on an interpretation of Gershwin's Porgy & Bess. The following year, he returned to Atlantic with the underrated album True to Life. His second stint with the label lasted until 1980.
That year, Charles' lagging career received a boost when he was signed by Rick Blackburn, head of CBS Records' Nashville division, and returned to country music.
His association with Columbia Records yielded hit duets with George Jones, Hank Williams Jr. and Mickey Gilley, and a No. 1 Country album, 1984's Friendship, and single, the Willie Nelson duet Seven Spanish Angels.
Charles moved to Warner Bros. Records in 1990. I'll Be Good to You, his duet with Chaka Khan for his old Seattle colleague Quincy Jones' Qwest imprint, won a Grammy in 1991. He received the last of his dozen Grammys in 1994, for A Song For You.
In 1997, Charles' classic recordings got extensive re-release through a licensing deal between the singer and Rhino Records.
Charles' most recent album, prior to his passing, was 2002's Thanks For Bringing Love Around Again, on his own Crossover imprint. However, just prior to his death, he had completed work on an album for Concord Records of duets with such talents as Willie Nelson, Norah Jones, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor. The disc was released as scheduled on Aug. 31, 2004.
Charles achieved cult-movie fame for his role in the 1980 musical comedy, The Blues Brothers. Among other film roles, he played a bus driver in the 1996 comedy, Spy Hard. Meant to be a gag--a blind man operating a motor vehicle--the Spy Hard bit wasn't far from the truth. The ever-resourceful Charles admitted to getting behind the wheel every now and then. He had also been on Saturday Night Live and on an episode of Who's the Boss? and St. Elsewhere.
Mr. Charles recorded a number of commercials, many of which were self-produced. His Diet Pepsi commercial, which features his singing "You got the right one baby-uh-huh," was rated most memorable commercial in 1991. Although many saw the commercial as selling out, it is said to have boosted his popularity among a younger audience.
In his well-traveled career, Charles won 12 competitive Grammys, earned three Emmy nominations, scored the Kennedy Center Honors, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Arts and inductions into the Rock, Jazz and Rhythm and Blues halls of fame.
From his website www.raycharles.com Mr. Charles' take on jazz is as follows; "I cannot understand how we as Americans, possessing such a rich heritage of music and the artists who play it, don't recognize all those talented people. It's a shame that so many of today's young people don't know the work of Art Tatum or Dizzy Gillespie or Charlie Parker or Clifford Brown, to name a few. They are the creators; they are the artists who helped form the backbone of our country's popular music.... When you talk about, say, classical music, you're talking about a form that came from Europe and European composers and musicians from an earlier time. But, we basically created jazz in this country; we own that form of music. And it's sad that we all don't have more extensive knowledge of that fact.... In Europe, though, you find people who know all about our music. I'm talking about the average person. I've been to Europe and talked to people who have records of mine that I forgot I ever made! And I find that incredible."
On Thursday June 10th, 2004 the leader of a great expedition through the pages of American music history made his final journey. This time he crossed a boundary of a different sort, a boundary of which he cannot cross back over and bring us songs and tales of his adventure. Simple clichés cannot aptly describe the passing of Ray Charles; just as a simple swing, gospel, soul, R&B, country and western, or jazz biography could ever cover his career.
Ray Charles + American Music = Genius.
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/apr/the-science-of-ray-charles2019s-swing
FROM THE APRIL 2007 ISSUE
FROM THE APRIL 2007 ISSUE
The Science of Ray Charles’s Swing
Rhythm that would put a metronome to shame.
by Dave Mosher
April 03, 2007
Discover Magazine
By breaking down Ray Charles’s rendition of Fever, Southern Oregon University information scientist and music aficionado Ken Lindsay discovered a remarkably rigorous bit of rhythm: Charles’s finger snaps set the main beat with an accuracy of two and a half milliseconds—half the time it takes a honeybee to flap its wings once. “That precision gives the song its amazingly tight swing,” says Lindsay. “His ability to control rhythm was incredible.” To capture Charles’s rhythm, Lindsay wrote a computer program that isolates instruments by frequency and displays their activity as spectrograms (right). By comparing such multicolored arrays, he was then able to plot a song’s notes into a map by the frequency, intensity, and time each note was played—the musical equivalent of a fingerprint. “A lot of the time, musicians don’t write down what they’re playing,” Lindsay says. “This is a way to capture the subtleties.”
Rhythm that would put a metronome to shame.
by Dave Mosher
April 03, 2007
Discover Magazine
By breaking down Ray Charles’s rendition of Fever, Southern Oregon University information scientist and music aficionado Ken Lindsay discovered a remarkably rigorous bit of rhythm: Charles’s finger snaps set the main beat with an accuracy of two and a half milliseconds—half the time it takes a honeybee to flap its wings once. “That precision gives the song its amazingly tight swing,” says Lindsay. “His ability to control rhythm was incredible.” To capture Charles’s rhythm, Lindsay wrote a computer program that isolates instruments by frequency and displays their activity as spectrograms (right). By comparing such multicolored arrays, he was then able to plot a song’s notes into a map by the frequency, intensity, and time each note was played—the musical equivalent of a fingerprint. “A lot of the time, musicians don’t write down what they’re playing,” Lindsay says. “This is a way to capture the subtleties.”
THE MUSIC OF RAY CHARLES: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MR. CHARLES:
Ray Charles - Newport Jazz Festival 1960--(Full Concert)
Ray Charles - Newport Jazz Festival 1960--(Full Concert)
Tracklist:
0:39 Lil' darlin'
7:00 I'm gonna go fishing
13:30 Let the good times roll
16:10 Don't let the sun catch you crying
20:45 I'll never let you go
23:46 My baby
26:55 Drown in my own tears
34:19 What'd I say
39:36 I Believe to my soul
Ray Charles Greatest Hits || Ray Charles Best Songs || Ray Charles Collection
♫ TrackList:
00:00 01. Hit The Road Jack
02:27 02. Georgia On My Mind
08:18 03. What'd I Say
12:17 04. Unchain My Heart
15:48 05. I Can't Stop Loving You
20:50 06. I Got A Woman
24:21 07. A Song For You
29:42 08. You Don't Know Me
33:45 09. I'M Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town
38:24 10. Night Time Is The Right Time
42:39 11. Let The Good Times Roll
46:20 12. Come Rain Or Come Shine
50:59 13. Ring Of Fire
55:49 14. Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying
01:00:28 15. Drown In My Own Tears
01:04:40 16. Hallelujah I Love Her So
01:07:55 17. The Right Time
01:12:11 18. They Can'T Take That Away From Me
01:17:29 19. Till There Was You
01:22:41 20. Isn'T It Wonderful
01:27:52 21. None Of Us Are Free
01:34:13 22. Imagine
01:39:51 23. If I Could
01:46:02 24. So Help Me God
Ray Charles's Greatest Hits (Full Album) - Best Songs Of Ray Charles:
1. Hit The Road Jack
2. Georgia On My Mind
3. I Got a woman
4. I can't stop loving you
5. Mess around
6. What'd I say
7. Unchain my heart
8. Hallelujah, I love her so
9. CC rider
10. A fool for you
11. Night times is the right time
12. It should have been me
13. Leave my woman alone
14. You've cheatin' hearts
15. Born to love
16. Let the good times roll
17. One mint julep
18. Come rain and come shine
19. But on the other hand, baby
20. I'm gonna move to the outskirts of town
21. You didn't know me
22. Hard hearted hannah
23. Someday
24. I wonder
25. The danger
26. Careless love
27. Everytime we say goodbye
28. Rockhouse
29. Baby, it's cold outside
30. I love you so much it hurts
31. Sticks and stones
Ray Charles - "Unchain My Heart”— HQ:
Ray Charles "You Don't Know Me":
"You Don't Know Me" written by Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold in 1955 was recorded by Ray Charles for his wonderful LP, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, on ABC-Paramount Records released in early April 1962. "You Don't Know Me" achieved # 1 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, #2 on the Pop Singles chart, & # 5 on the Black Singles chart. The album peaked #1 for 14 weeks on the Billboard U.S. Pop Albums chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1963. It is available on CD on Rhino Entertainment.
Ray Charles - "I Got A Woman”
From the album "Ray Charles "I Got A Woman"-- (Greatest Hits):
Ray Charles - "Blues + Jazz:
1/16 videos
Ray Charles - "Come Rain or Come Shine”
From the CD: ‘The Definitive Ray Charles’:
"What'd I Say" - Ray Charles (rare, original version with intro):
"Hit the road Jack" - Ray Charles (Original recording looped for 10 hours!):
Album: Greatest Hits, Vol. 1
Released: 1961
Video clip Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 -- June 10, 2004), known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records.
Ray Charles - Full Concert - "1981":
THE ECLECTIC GENIUS OF RAY CHARLES MUSIC ON VIDEO:♫ TrackList:
00:00 01. Hit The Road Jack
02:27 02. Georgia On My Mind
08:18 03. What'd I Say
12:17 04. Unchain My Heart
15:48 05. I Can't Stop Loving You
20:50 06. I Got A Woman
24:21 07. A Song For You
29:42 08. You Don't Know Me
33:45 09. I'M Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town
38:24 10. Night Time Is The Right Time
42:39 11. Let The Good Times Roll
46:20 12. Come Rain Or Come Shine
50:59 13. Ring Of Fire
55:49 14. Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying
01:00:28 15. Drown In My Own Tears
01:04:40 16. Hallelujah I Love Her So
01:07:55 17. The Right Time
01:12:11 18. They Can'T Take That Away From Me
01:17:29 19. Till There Was You
01:22:41 20. Isn'T It Wonderful
01:27:52 21. None Of Us Are Free
01:34:13 22. Imagine
01:39:51 23. If I Could
01:46:02 24. So Help Me God
Ray Charles's Greatest Hits (Full Album) - Best Songs Of Ray Charles:
1. Hit The Road Jack
2. Georgia On My Mind
3. I Got a woman
4. I can't stop loving you
5. Mess around
6. What'd I say
7. Unchain my heart
8. Hallelujah, I love her so
9. CC rider
10. A fool for you
11. Night times is the right time
12. It should have been me
13. Leave my woman alone
14. You've cheatin' hearts
15. Born to love
16. Let the good times roll
17. One mint julep
18. Come rain and come shine
19. But on the other hand, baby
20. I'm gonna move to the outskirts of town
21. You didn't know me
22. Hard hearted hannah
23. Someday
24. I wonder
25. The danger
26. Careless love
27. Everytime we say goodbye
28. Rockhouse
29. Baby, it's cold outside
30. I love you so much it hurts
31. Sticks and stones
Ray Charles - "Unchain My Heart”— HQ:
Ray Charles "You Don't Know Me":
"You Don't Know Me" written by Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold in 1955 was recorded by Ray Charles for his wonderful LP, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, on ABC-Paramount Records released in early April 1962. "You Don't Know Me" achieved # 1 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, #2 on the Pop Singles chart, & # 5 on the Black Singles chart. The album peaked #1 for 14 weeks on the Billboard U.S. Pop Albums chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1963. It is available on CD on Rhino Entertainment.
Ray Charles - "I Got A Woman”
From the album "Ray Charles "I Got A Woman"-- (Greatest Hits):
Ray Charles - "Blues + Jazz:
1/16 videos
Ray Charles - "Come Rain or Come Shine”
From the CD: ‘The Definitive Ray Charles’:
"What'd I Say" - Ray Charles (rare, original version with intro):
"Hit the road Jack" - Ray Charles (Original recording looped for 10 hours!):
Album: Greatest Hits, Vol. 1
Released: 1961
Video clip Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 -- June 10, 2004), known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records.
Ray Charles - Live in France 1961:
Ray Charles - Full Concert - "1981":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhUxhXfrGWI&list=PLAuU3XLIOkbs8Va1vIZH1GwjILfa_yBCa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BzkiZBzcu4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhzO9MiNafY
http://www.youtube.com/artist/ray-charles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPVixS5jSWs&list=ALBTKoXRg38BAR-MKBbfE0aYJGG2W4NSJP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GX8UalMq8k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeE_ZRJN9to&list=ALBTKoXRg38BAGw2lHMTlVoc57_m4gn8YW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1zKlKTLnqU&list=RD02yeE_ZRJN9to
Ray Charles on Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson & Nat King Cole:
Ray Charles discussing some of his musical heroes with Clint Eastwood
From Eastwood's 2003 documentary "Piano Blues":
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-rolling-stone-interview-ray-charles-19730118
Ray Charles: The Rolling Stone Interview
Getting real with the great one
Five years ago, when he
was still working the lounges, second billed to such as Mongo
Santamaria, Flip Wilson had an album out that had this skit about
Christopher Columbus. Columbus is telling Queen Isabella about his
wanting to journey off to a new land, "to discover America."
"America?!" the queen exclaims, in a high, throaty black voice. "You goin' to America? You gonna find Ray Charles?"
* * *
Ray Charles is one of the great ones, a genius, as he's been called for some 13 years, or, as Sinatra put it, "the only genius in the business." He is the major influence on dozens of blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and rock & roll musicians. Joe Cocker idolized him, from faraway England, to the point of imitation. So did Billy Preston, who would show up at Ray's doorstep in L.A. to audition. Aretha Franklin called him "the Right Reverend," and Georgia legislator Julian Bond picked up the beat, in a poem called "The Bishop of Atlanta: Ray Charles," finishing:
Throbbing from the gutter
On Saturday night
Silver offering only
The Right Reverend's back in town
Don't it make you feel all right?
Ray Charles' 26 years in the business are represented by some 40 albums. He got his first gold record with "What'd I Say" for Atlantic Records in the summer of 1959, seven years after he'd joined that label. Charles then switched to ABC and began a streak with "Georgia on My Mind," "Ruby," and "Hit the Road Jack." He topped them all with a country & western album that gave him a three-million-selling single, "I Can't Stop Loving You," along with criticism from fans who didn't want to hear the Genius kicking shit. Others, like Gladys Knight, listened: "Ray Charles," She said, "hipped a lot of the black people to country & western bands . . . we was kind of listening before, but he made it even more down-to-earth where you could dig it." And Quincy Jones, long-time friend and arranger with Charles, appreciated his pioneer sense of eclecticism: "Ray Charles was responsible," he said, "for us opening our ears to all kinds of music."
Born September 23rd, 1930, in Albany, Georgia, Ray first jumped onto a piano bench, for fun, at age five in Greensville, Florida, where his parents had moved into what he remembered as a "shotgun house" – "If you stood on the porch and shot a gun you'd go right through it". Over the next two years, he lost his sight (he had been stricken with glaucoma, doctors determined years later); his parents, Bailey and Araetha, were laborers who couldn't afford medical help. "When I wroke up in the mornings," Charles recalled, "I'd have to pry my eyes open." Blinded, he learned to work to help out, washing clothes, scrubbing floors, even chopping wood, until he went to blind school in Orlando, Florida. He studied music there – he'd begun to pick out tunes on a neighbor's piano by age seven – and by 15 was writing arrangements for big bands he heard in his imagination. Then his mother died, following his father by five years, and Charles left school to go to work, playing in combos around Georgia and Florida. He was "crawling," he said, until he split to Seattle and got a record contract from Swingtime, a small label. He cut "Confession Blues," then had his first success, "Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand," done in the style of one of his main influences – or, as Johnny Otis put it, "It was a wonderful thing, but he definitely was aping Charles Brown." Ray would soon develop his own fusion of blues, jazz and gospel, touring with Lowell Fulson, then forming a backup group for Ruth Brown in New York. He returned to Seattle and formed the Maxim Trio, worked at the Rocking Chair club and on local TV, and found himself signed to Atlantic Records when Swingtime sold his contract. First sessions were done with studio musicians (and, one time, with a pickup band including a Mexican-dominated horn section at a radio studio in New Orleans). At Atlantic, Ray began to write arrangements and compose his own great songs, blended gospel with a rocking R&B sound, formed a septet, cut "I Got a Woman," and moved into the first of Many heights.
And all the time, he was on junk. He'd been using heroin since 1948, when he was 18, and he'd been busted before, around 1956, but it had all been kept hushed. Then, in 1965, Charles was arrested in Boston, reportedly in possession of a planeload of heroin, and entered a hospital in Lynwood, California. According to published stories, he spent three months undergoing medical and psychiatric help, followed by a year off. He saw a Viennese psychoanalyst regularly.
Charles has his own version of his involvement with drugs, but over the years, he has refused to discuss it. When Playboy asked him, in 1970, how he started, he begged off the question. Asked if he might not be an influence to stop potential drug-users, he replied: "Bullshit. Everybody's aware that cigarettes probably cause cancer, but how many people do you think would give them up just because Ray Charles stopped smoking?" And, he continued, "I'm fed up with talking about that aspect of my life. Jesus Christ couldn't get me to say another word on the subject to anybody." Downbeat, in fact, must have had the devil on retainer; an article on Charles in the jazz publication took the form of an apologetic memo to future interviewers of Ray Charles, warning them not to ask him about narcotics. Instead, they were advised, accentuate the positive! Write about him knowing how to produce his own records! In his own studios! For his own label! How he plays chess and repairs radios and TVs! How he could even fly his own plane if he had to! How he helps fight Sickle Cell Anemia! How he's gotten all these Grammies and awards! Let the good times roll!
But when you call him the epitome of the American Dream, as Whitney Balliett did in the New Yorker, that's pretty positive. And yet, you've got to know that there were some nightmares along the way.
In two short sessions with Ray Charles, in a dressing room in San Francisco and in his recording studio in Los Angeles, I found him an articulate man, sometimes volatile in defense of his pride, deep-steeped to the point of repetition in telling what to him was the truth, and seemingly inclined to halve that "truth" sometimes, in discussing the beatdown aspects of his life. Example: He says, in the interview, he has maintained sales figures between 300,000 and 800,000 per album through the years. Fact, from ABC, which distributes his Tangerine Records: His best record in recent years, Message from the People, sold 250,000. Volcanic Action of My Soul, released in 1971, sold about 200,000. And the three albums before Volcanic "did even less." His most recent pop chart single, said the ABC executive, was "Don't Change on Me," in June, 1970.
Example: The sudden shift from Atlantic to ABC. Charles says it was for a big money deal, and that he gave Atlantic a chance to match the offer. Sources at Atlantic insist that Charles had people around him who got him to sign the ABC deal before Atlantic even learned about it.
So when we got the conversation around to dope, to his 19-year addiction to heroin, it was a surprise to hear Ray plunge into his hooking and kicking, and it was no surprise that the stories sometimes seemed, in at least two definitions of that word, fantastic. Example: Ray says he took that year off the road, after his bust in '65, to make the courts happy (he continued to produce records, including "Crying Time" and "Let's Go Get Stoned"). He'd kicked even before the bust, he hinted in our talk. But Ron Granger, who was director of Tangerine for three years and knew Charles from long ago, told us: "He took that year off to kick it. It took a year."
But the man is clean, a nonstop worker, a perfectionist/taskmaster devoted to his music. He moves around his office building with ease, with no cane, still missing a stairstep now and then as he moves between control room and main studio, instructing musicians, running the console, re-doing his vocals. He is a gentleman as I toss in questions over an 11-hour mixing session. Sometimes, ego challenged, there's volcanic action, as he stands up, all dressed in black, and shouts a reply, punctuating it with a "Hel-lo!" before he sits again. In his hotel room, with milk in the refrigerator and coffee and toast on the table, he writhes on the couch, sits forward pensively, falls almost onto his knee to find another restful position. He's just returned from a visit to President Nixon at the White House, where he accepted praise for his work as honorary chairman of the sickle cell foundation. ("It was a gas!" he would tell reporters; to me, he said he might even vote for Nixon, given his record of hiring Negroes and given McGovern's strange changes.)
We accentuated the positive for a bit, talked about how he plays chess with a specially carved set, how he admired Bobby Fischer for insisting on championship playing conditions, how he "saw" baseball games by going to the stadium with a transistor at his ear, how he chose the songs for the new album, Through the Eyes of Love. We began by asking him to recall himself as a five year-old, when his eyes began to run, to hurt.
* * *
It didn't happen like one day I could see 100 miles and the next day I couldn't see an inch. It was, each day for two years my sight was less and less. My mother was always real with me, and bein' poor, you got to pretty much be honest with your children. We couldn't afford no specialists. I was lucky I could get a doctor – that's a specialist.
When you were losing your sight, did you try to take in as much as possible, to remember things?
I guess I was too small to really care that much. I knew there were things I liked to watch. I used to love to look at the sun. That's a bad thing for my eyes, but I liked that. I used to love to look at the moon at night. I would go out in the back yard and stare at it. It just fascinated the hell out of me. And another thing that fascinated me that would scare most people is lightnin'. When I was a kid, I thought that was pretty. Anything like brightness, any kind of lights. I probably would've been a fire bug or somethin'.
And there were colors. I was crazy about red. Always thought it was a beautiful color. I remember the basic colors. I don't know nothin' about chartreuse and all – I don't know what the hell that is. But I know the black, green, yellow, brown and stuff like that. And naturally I remember my mother, who was pretty. God, she was pretty. She was a little woman. She must have been about 4'11", I guess, and when I was 12 or 13, I was taller and bigger than my mother, and she had this long pretty black hair, used to come way down her back. Pretty good-lookin' chick, man [laughter].
A lot of people have asked you to define soul. I'd like to get a definition of beauty.
If you're talkin' about physical beauty, I would have to say that to me beauty is probably about the same thing that it means to most people. You look at them and the structure of their face, the way their skin is, and say like, a woman, the contour of her body, you know what I mean? The same way as I would walk out and feel the car. Put my hands on the lines of a car, and I'd know whether I'd like it or not from the way the designs of the lines are. As I said, I was fortunate enough to see until I was about seven, and I remember the things that I heard people calling beautiful.
How about beauty in music?
I guess you could call me a sentimentalist, man, really. I like Chopin or Sibelius. People who write softness, you know, and although Beethoven to me was quite heavy, he wrote some really touching songs, and I think that Moonlight Sonata – in spite of the fact that it wound up being very popular – it's somethin' about that, man, you could just feel the pain that this man was goin' through. Somethin' had to be happenin' in that man. You know, he was very, very lonesome when he wrote that. Anyway, I thought that with the exception of just two or three compositions, he was a little bit heavy for me. Just like from a technical point of view, I think Bach, if you really want to learn technique, that was the cat, 'cause he had all them fugues and things, your hands doin' all kinda different things. Personally, outside of technique, I didn't care for Bach, but I must say, in order for you to make your hands be able to do different things from each other, he was the greatest in the world for that.
Did you try to catch up with high school or college after you left school?
No. When I left school, I had to get out and really tough it, as you know, because my mother passed away when I was 15. I didn't have no brothers or sisters. But my mama always taught me, "Look, you got to learn how to get along by yourself," and she's always tellin' me, "Son, one of these days I'm gonna be dead, and you're gonna need to know how to survive, because even your best friends, although they may want to do things for you; after all, they will have their own lives." So at that point I started tryin' to help myself. So what do I do to help myself? The thing I can do best, or figure I can do best, anyway. And that is sing or play the piano or both.
What else did they teach you in school that could have been applied to a career?
Well, I don't know where I would have used it, but I can probably type as fast as any secretary. Well, not any, I can type about 60-65 words a minute, somethin' like that when I wanna. Then I can make all kinds of things with my hands. I can make chairs and brooms and mops and rugs and pocketbooks and belts and all kinds of things like that. So guess if I had to, I would go and buy me some leather. I love to work with my hands, and I'm sure that's what I would do had I not played music, you see, because it's the kind of a thing that you can use plenty of imagination in it, you know what I mean? And so I know how to do various kinds of stitchin' Mexican stitchin' and regular stitchin' overlappin' it and stuff. So I guess I would have – although it would have been a very meek livin', I suppose. You can't turn out a lot by hand.
Music was a meek living for a long time, too.
Yeah, it was really crawlin'. I became very ill a couple times' I suffered from malnutrition, you know. I was really messed up because I wasn't eatin' nothin', and I wouldn't beg. I refused to beg. I'd say hell, I'd starve first. I mean, this is just embedded in me as a child. You don't beg. You go and try to offer your services or somethin', but if you ask somebody for somethin' and they don't give it to you, you don't beg them for it. Two things you don't do, you don't beg and you don't steal. And I don't do neither right now. That's right.
Did you get to the point where you actually did steal?
No. No. Those are the two things I would not do, and I don't do it now.
What kind of music education did you have in Florida?
They taught you how to read the music, and I had to play Chopin, Beethoven, you know, the normal thing. Just music lessons. Not really theory. I don't know what that is. It's just, they taught me how to read music, and naturally how to use correct fingerin', and once you've learned that you go from the exercises into little compositions into things like Chopin. That's the way it went, although I was tryin' to play boogie-woogie, man, 'cause I could always just about play anything I heard. My ear was always pretty good, but I did have a few music teachers, and so I do know music quite well, if you don't mind my saying so. I was never taught to write music, but when I was 12 years old I was writing arrangements for a big band. Hell, if you can read music, you can write it, and I think certainly what helped me is that I'm a piano player, so I know chords. Naturally, I can hear chords, and I could always play just about anything I could hear. It was just a question of learning how to put it down on paper. I just studied how to write for horns on my own. Like, understanding that the saxophone is in different keys, and also, when I was goin' to school I took up clarinet. See, I was a great fan of Artie Shaw. I used to think, "Man, ooh, he had the prettiest sound," and he had so much feelin' in his playin'. I always felt that, still feel it today. I mean, it's amazing, I don't know why he stopped playin', but I always thought he was one of the best clarinet players around, bar none. So I took up clarinet as well as piano, but piano was the first thing I took up.
Where were you hearing this boogiewoogie?
We lived next door for some years to a little general store, that's what it was, 'cause this is a country town, remember, Greensville, Florida, and it had a little store there where the kids could come in and buy soda pop and candy and the people could buy kerosene for their lamps, you know. And they had a jukebox in there. And the guy who owned it also had a piano. Wylie Pittman is the guy, even when I was three and four years old, if I was out in the yard playin', and if he started playin' that piano, I would stop playin' and run in there and jump on the stool. Normally, you figure a kid run in there like that and jump on the stool and start bangin' on the piano, the guy would throw him off. "Say, get away from here, don't you see me". . . but he didn't do that. I always loved that man for that. I was about five years old, and on my birthday he had some people there. He said, "RC" – This is what they called me then – "look, I want you to get up on the stool, and I want you to play for these people." Now, let's face it. I was five years old. They know damn well I wasn't playin'. I'm Just bangin' on the keys, you understand. But that was encouragement that got me like that, and I think that the man felt that any time a child is willin' to stop playin', you know, out in the yard and havin' fun, to come in and hear somebody play the piano, evidently this child has music in his bones, you know. And he didn't discourage me, which he could have, you know what I mean? Maybe I wouldn't have been a musician at all, because I didn't have a musical family, now remember that.
You were also able to hear 'The Grand Ole Opry' when you were a kid?
Yep, yeah, I always – every Saturday night, I never did miss it. I don't know why I liked the music. I really thought that it was somethin' about country music, even as a youngster – I couldn't figure out what it was then, but I know what it is now. But then I don't know why I liked it and I used to just love to hear Minnie Pearl, because I thought she was so funny.
How old were you then?
Oh, I guess I was about seven, eight, and I remember Roy Acuff and Gene Austin. Although I was bred in and around the blues, I always did have interest in other music, and I felt the closest music, really, to the blues – they'd make them steel guitars cry and whine, and it really attracted me. I don't know what it is. Gospel and the blues are really, if you break it down, almost the same thing. It's just a question of whether you're talkin' about a woman or God. I come out of the Baptist church, and naturally whatever happened to me in that church is gonna spill over. So I think the blues and gospel music is quite synonymous to each other.
Big Bill Broonzy once said that "Ray Charles has got the blues he's cryin' sanctified. He's mixin' the blues with the spirituals. . . . He should be singin' in a church."I personally feel that it was not a question of mixing gospel with the blues. It was a question of singin' the only way I knew how to sing. This was not a thing where I was tryin' to take the church music and make the blues out of it or vice versa. All I was tryin' to do was sing the only way I knew how, period. I was raised in the church. I went to the Sunday school. I went to the morning service, and that's where they had the young people doin' their performin', and I went to night service, and I went to all the revival meetings. My parents said, "You will go to church." I mean they ain't no if about that. So singin' in the church and hearin' this good singin' in the church and also hearin' the blues, I guess this was the only way I could sing, outside of loving Nat Cole so well, and I tried to imitate him very much. When I was starting out, I loved the man so much until I really – that's why I can understand a lot of other artists who come up and try to imitate me. You know, when you love somebody so much and you feel what they're doin' is close to what you feel, some of that rubs off on you – so I did that.
But, say, Joe Cocker is a white man, and British; you were emulating a fellow black.
That's right, but man, look, I want you to – please, if you can ever put this into words, 'cause I can't say it, but if you can ever find a way to say this – I wish to hell that people could do one thing. We don't have to lose our identity. Nobody does, because they happen to do a certain thing. I feel that you've got great basketball players – white and black ones. You got great musicians – white and black ones. I've heard where a person says, "Well, damn, you know one thing, man, I didn't realize that guy was white until" . . . or, "I didn't realize that this person was black until . . . " You understand what I'm sayin? I'm not the kind of a guy that wants to generalize and say that you can't do this if you're black or you can't do that if you're white. I think that if a man has had the kicking around and the abuse and the scorn, I think that if he has talent, he can put that some way or another so that the people can hear him. I remember one time a guy asked me, hey, man, do you think a white cat could ever sing the blues? Which is a legitimate question. It didn't hurt my feelings. I feel that anybody, if you ever have the blues bad enough, with the background that dictates to the horror and the sufferin' of the blues, I don't give a damn if he's green, purple – he can give it to ya.
It was said that Joe Cocker, or his people, were picking out more of the contemporary rock and roll material that was popular with a large segment of the young audience. . . .When you say he has a bigger whatever-it-was with the "young audience"– what young audience? All right now. Come on, now. I guarantee you [shouting] you got far more people who know . . . you're talkin' about the overall white audience. Let's call a spade a spade or whatever. . . .
Young, white audience. . . .
Well, I don't care what you call it, I don't care whether it's two years old, five, I don't care what you call it – the fact – you can never get away from it, man, it's just no way to get away from this. I am not saying it out of bitterness. I'm just telling you the truth of the matter, and I'm old enough. Hell, I'm 42 years old. I never joke with Ray about realism, and the fact of the matter is here's Joe Cocker, here's a guy – listen, I'll tell you something' – I guess about 10, well, it's back there more than that – maybe 13-14 years ago, they had ads in the paper where they were tryin' to find anybody to sing like me. You think about that for a minute. You see?
I guarantee Joe Cocker ain't never appealed more to the young people who raised me up. He appeals to the young white because he's white. Shit, man. That ain't a mad statement, that's just the truth. [Laughter.] You don't fool around with the truth. When you get a guy who come up and say, like an Elvis Presley, let's face it, man, you had more people goin' out shakin' their behinds and stuff like that. You know where Elvis got that from – he used to be down on Beale Street in Memphis. That's where he saw the black people doin' that. Ain't no way they'd let anybody like us get on TV and do that, but he could 'cause he's white. Now, see, I don't like to bring the racial thing in this, but unfortunately, the way we are set up, the whole thing is man, I guarantee you, Nat "King" Cole go down there in Alabama and sing these love songs and they'd beat him up. You understand what I mean? Why? Not because he's doin' a bad job, but because the young white girls run up and say, "Oh, Nat!" and they say, "No, we can't have that." Come on, man, shit, that's where it is.
I don't have time to be bitter. What I have time for is to try to see what I can do to help the guy that's comin' up and maybe he can make it better if I can help him. You see? I done seen all this, man. I know all about the places where I couldn't drink outta the fountain. I know all about the places I couldn't go to the bathroom when I had to pee – somethin' that's natural for every human bein'. You understand me? And if I do it on the highway and the cop see me, he gonna put me in jail for it and maybe beat my head, too. Depend on where I am. See, I know all about that, but I don't want to let that get into what I'm doin'. I figure that, OK, I'm in this business because I love music. So I can't afford to let bitterness get into me, but if when you ask me what's really happenin', if you get people and sit them down and say, hey, man, let's cut all the fat outta this.
Get down to the real thing. What is it? This is the real thing I'm tellin' you now. That's without bitterness and I ain't mad. I can afford to tell you that for one reason; you see, thank the Lord, I'm fairly cool about it. My kids ain't gonna starve unless they bomb the country or somethin' with nuclear weapons or somethin'. Man, I'm pretty straight, and I can tell you all about both ends of it. I know how it is when you have to use a piece of like cardboard to put your shoes on when you don't have a slipper spoon, and I know how it is to live in a $200,000 house.
What keeps me from being bitter about this – the reason that this happens is because people who are in power tend to lean toward themselves. It's the same as a guy who is in a house. He has his own house, he's got his own, whatever it is, his own family. Well, let's face it, he may love you, but if it's somethin' comin' up, he's gonna tend to lean towards – if he can get his own kids in there, he tends to go that way, you understand? I think this is basically what happens in the structure of our society. It's a capitalistic country, and it's a white society, and they control. They got the money. They got the airplanes, the bombs, every goddamn thing. You name it, they got it. So therefore, naturally you have, what is it? – 15-20 percent black, you got 80-85 percent white. Fine. So, as a result of that, if you're not careful, you can become very bitter, because you'll say, well, why in the world – here I am, and here's a guy who'll spend millions of dollars to find a white cat just to imitate me, and he'll do far better than me. Well, the only thing that I can say that sort of helps me a little bit, that keeps me goin' – I say two things. First of all, in order for that guy to copy me, he gotta wait 'til I do it first. Now [laughter], the second thing I feel, well, if this is the case, if you take this guy over me and he's just an imitation of me, then that says to me that I must be pretty damn good. Because I don't know nobody that you wanna copy that ain't worth a damn. All right, hello. [Laughter.]
That says it?
That say it all, man. I mean, that's your salvation, 'cause if you don't think like that, you'll be bitter. You really would be bitter.
Other critics have said that when Aretha moved from Columbia to Atlantic, she enjoyed immense success, while you moved to ABC and in the mid-Sixties, you were on kind of a downhill critical slide with records.
Yeah?
Now, how did you feel about that?
Oh, I don't know. I guess that's probably some cat who didn't see my financial sheet. I don't really worry about that, you know. Fortunately for me, throughout my career – now it's true, I haven't had a million seller every time I put out a record, but what has happened with me has been a very simple thing. I've had those 400,000, 700,000, 300,000, 800,000, and that's been constantly goin' on all through my career. I'll tell you what my answer is: When I can walk into an airport and you get little kids sayin', [whispering] "Mama that's Ray Charles," I'm raisin' them. That's where I'm at, man. As long as the people keep doin' that, as long as I can walk anywhere and as I'm walkin' all I can hear is [whispering] "That's Ray Charles!" I don't figure I need to worry too much.
Now, you say this is in the mid-Sixties, right? I just wanna ask you a dumb question. Tell me, what was wrong with "Crying Time"? That was in the mid-Sixties. "Let's Go Get Stoned." I didn't find nothin' wrong with these songs. I mean, they seemed to sell all right.
First of all, I don't tell myself what some people say: "Well, Ray, the genius" I never called myself a genius. I'm not the one to do that, brother. I think that's up to the people to decide, and if they give me the impression, well, Ray, you been out here a long time now, but we want to turn you out to pasture now, you know, that would be all right with me, because hell, I figure whatever I ain't got in 27 years, I don't deserve to have it. Because I've had every opportunity to do what I need.
There was also criticism that you were coasting on your name, your past success.
Well, let me tell you somethin', honey, I never coast. Never. I want to say this to you so if you can dramatize or use any kind of exclamation points – I never coast on nothin'. Before I coast, I quit. Because remember one thing, man. I owe somethin' to Ray first. It's to me. I ain't ever gonna lie to Ray. I can't bull me.
We were talking about when you started out. You played what was called "cocktail music," playing piano and singing songs like "If I Give You My Love." But were you always looking to form your own big band?
Well, when I was doing what you're talkin' about right now, my only thing, my goal was, "Wow, if I could only just get to make records, too." That's why, in 1948, when they had the union ban on musicians so they weren't allowed to record, I recorded anyway – first of all I didn't know about the ban, and of course, later I had to pay a fine for it – I didn't care. I was only about 17 or somethin' like that. I was workin' in Seattle, then, and a fellow came up from Los Angeles, Jack Lauderdale, and he had a little record company [Swingtime], and I was workin' at the Rockin' Chair. He came and one night he was in there and heard me playing and he said to me, "Listen, I have a record company. I would like to record you." Man, I was so glad, I didn't ask him how much money I was gonna get. I didn't care. I would have done it for nothin'. So he said, "Look, I'm gonna take you down to Los Angeles." And wow, Los Angeles, you know. Ooh, yeah, yeah. And I'm gonna be recorded, man. You know, wow, my own voice on a record. [Laughter.]
I went down there and we made a song called "Confession Blues." That was my first record. Sold pretty good. Then, about a year later, because 1949 we made a song called "Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand." Now that really was a big hit. "Confession Blues" sold mediocre – it sold well enough to suit me, because I was hearing it where I went. But when I was out on the road workin' with Lowell Fulson, he had a big record called "Every Day I Have the Blues." We were on the same label. I had "Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand," and he was singin' "Every Day I Have the Blues," and we were packin' 'em in. This is really where I started touring the country.
By this time you were away from Maxim Trio.
I had left Seattle – and, see, once I went to California, I liked the weather and the way it felt – there was somethin' about the way Los Angeles felt to me, and I wanted to come back there and live. I've always been the kind of a guy, strangely enough, if I like somethin', I try to take hold of it. I've always been that way, and I guess, as I say, it goes back to my mother again, you know. I think that – you know, my mother, she was not a well-educated woman. I think she went to about the fifth grade or somethin' like that in school, but she had, I think this woman had more – I don't know what kind of sense you would call it. We used to call it horse sense, common sense, mother wit, you know. She had, I think, as much of that as God could possibly stick in anybody's brain. She taught me everything that I feel, like she always said, "If you feel somethin', if you like somethin', try to take hold of it, get ahold of it." I've always lived that way.
When you left Florida, why did you choose to go to the other corner of the country?
It was just – New York I was frightful of, 'cause I just couldn't imagine myself goin' to New York or Chicago or even Los Angeles. They sounded so big, man. I guess I always felt that I was pretty good, but I wasn't sure of myself to want to jump out into a big city like New York. I was too scared for that. So what I wanted to do was pick a town that was far away from Florida, but not huge, and Seattle really was about as far away as I could get. All across the US, and of course, it wasn't a huge town, half a million people or somethin' like that.
How long did you stay with Swingtime?
I was there until Atlantic bought the contract. I think it was '51 or so. About three or four years.
That was Ahmet and Herb Abramson and Miriam, I think, at that time. I don't know how that was done. I met with the people at Atlantic, and they said, "Well, I'm under contract to somebody." They said, "Well, look, we'll buy the contract." So I said, "Fine, buy it." And that's it. finished.
Why did you leave Atlantic? Jerry Wexler told me it was a "shock" to him.
Well, you know the people at Atlantic – Jerry, Ahmet, Nesuhi . . . I love all the people over there. It was the kind of thing where ABC came up with a contract. And I think they were trying to lure somebody there, and I hate to say this, because it makes me sound like I'm blowin' my own horn, but you know, I was with Atlantic and we had this big hit "What'd I Say" and a couple other things, so they came up with a contract and I let Jerry and them know about it. The contract was so unreal. I mean, the thing was that, well, if ABC was really seriously gonna do it, Atlantic just couldn't match it, based on the original contract I had with them. But I let them know, because, you know – and that's why today I have to tell you, Ben, that Jerry and I are the best of friends, because I didn't do anything sneaky, in the dark, or nothin' like that. They knew the whole bit, and my thing was, look, I'm not asking you to better ABC's deal, I'm just saying if you can match it, I'll stay with you. And it was the kind of thing where they said, "Look, Ray, it's awfully heavy for us." But you gotta understand from ABC's point of view, they didn't think that the contract was gonna work out that well either, because, remember now, I had been with Atlantic a long time, and most artists, let's face it, they get cold after about four or five years, you know, with any company. And so, the thought is, for Christ's sake, it might be the situation where, well, you know, ABC is searching, they are hunting for an artist that is hot, and Atlantic is feeling, well, groovy, our hearts go out to this guy, but still, they're based upon what our situation is now. It would be rather difficult for us to meet a contract similar to this, so they said, "Look, Ray, we wish you the best."
You gotta understand the position of each party, and of course, ABC at the time was offering me the kind of a contract that, believe me, in those days, in 1959, was unheard of. Now, as a result of that, I tell you, I don't even think that they figured that I would do as well, because, like I say, I've been out there for a while. So what they were basically after was the name and to stimulate other names.
To sign with ABC.
Right. And so I was like a pawn, but as it turned out we were so lucky, because right after I went with ABC, we came up with "Georgia," and then the country-western stuff, see? But I did a country-western song with Atlantic before I went to ABC, but the other side of it sold, the song "I Believe to My Soul." Well, on the back of that was a song called "Keep Movin' On."
Hank Snow.
That's right. There's where I first get the idea. But it just turn out that once I changed contracts, I followed that idea. Now, with ABC we had people saying, "Hey, man, gee whiz, Ray, you got all these fans, you can't do no country-western things. Your fans – you gonna lose all your fans." Well, I said, "For Christ sake, I'll do it anyway." Not to be – don't misunderstand me – I didn't want to be a Charlie Pride, now. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying that was not my intent. I didn't want to be a country-western singer. I just wanted to take country-western songs. When I sing "I Can't Stop Loving You," I'm not singin' it country-western. I'm singin' it like me. But I think the words to country songs are very earthy like the blues, see, very down. They're not as dressed up, and the people are very honest and say, "Look, I miss you, darling', so I went out and I got drunk in this bar." That's the way you say it. Wherein Tin Pan Alley will say, "Oh, I missed you darling, so I went to this restaurant and I sat down and I had dinner for one." That's cleaned up now, you see? But country songs and the blues is like it is.
I did two albums of country-western, you gotta remember I did Volume I, and hell, if you get an album to sell well over a million, you almost gotta do – that's almost forcing you to do one more. But that's all I did with country-western was two albums.
Atlantic gave you musical independence and built a reputation for R&B and jazz. ABC, on the other hand, wasn't known for a sound. Did you have a feeling of trepidation about moving from one to the other?
No, 'cause my thing was that it was a record company, and I thought I could sell records for ABC as well as I could sell records for Atlantic or anybody else. Plus, after all, you gotta understand, man, I had been workin' a long time, strugglin' a mighty long time with nothin', and this was a helluva chance for me to really better myself, if I really had any kind of luck, I really was gonna wind up bein' all right. I made an awful lot of money fast, real fast. I mean, almost too fast. Because I could have had a terrific tax problem – fortunately I didn't – 'cause soon as we got over there, we started havin' some fantastic success right away, and I made a tremendous amount of money quick, and, now, of course, like I told you, I guess I have a little conceit about me. I feel I can do almost anything if I wanna, so I felt, sure, I sold records for Atlantic records. I sold records for Swingtime, and I felt if I did that, sure, I could sell records for ABC, and since this company is gonna guarantee me so much money and along with producin', wow, why fight it, baby?
What was the production deal?
I was producin' myself, you see? In other words, it was a contract within a contract. I got paid the regular top artist scale as an artist, but also the producin' end of it was where the extra money came from. That was where, out of every dime I got seven and a half cents, and that's pretty damn good, man. That's besides the artist contract, you know. You see a cat gonna give you seven and a half cents out of every dime profit, now I don't know . . . [laughter] unbelievable contract, so it's pretty hard to ask a company to pay a cat five percent royalties, whatever it is, and then also give him seven and a half cents out of every dime profit, as a producer of my own records. And so you know the records were successful, you can imagine the amount of money I made so fast, quick. Sorry about that, man. I didn't mean to do it. [Laughter.] What can I tell you?
After Swingtime, when you began searching around for your own voice, did you find it naturally or did you get help from Ahmet or Jerry?
I gotta tell you the truth, man, about Ahmet and Nesuhi and Herb Abramson and Jerry when he came in, these people never at any time told me what to sing or how to sing it. OK? I have to be honest with you. I think if they had told me that, I woulda told them where to take the contract. I figured that whatever I'm doin', I'm gonna do it to the best of my ability. Now you have a right to say you don't want it, but you can't tell me how to do it. I won't allow that. I guess I've always been very firm about that. I didn't have that with Atlantic. I didn't have it with ABC.
All I did, and Jerry can tell you – he never put any pressure on me. I would call him up and say, "Hey, Jerry, I'm ready to record." That's how we did "I Got a Woman." I was on the road, workin' every day. I called him up in New York and said, hey, I'm ready to record. So he said, where are you, where are you gonna be? I said I'd be in Atlanta in a few days. He flew down to Atlanta, Georgia. That's where we made "I Got a Woman." Little studio. Just a little bit – I think it was WGST or somethin'. Little bitty, and they weren't equipped for recording. But we went in there and we struggled and we managed it. That's the way we did it. I mean, I didn't have no pressure on me about doing anything, and I didn't have no pressure on me at ABC neither.
The gospel, call-and-responses in your songs – "Drown in My Own Tears," "What'd I Say," and "Hit the Road Jack" – I'd say, were tremendous influences on Motown's sound. How did that develop?
Well, I don't know how anything . . . I just hear things in my head. That's the simplest answer I can give you, man. What I hear is what comes out, and I'm very instantaneous, I guess. I feel somethin', I get an idea how I want to do it, and I just do it. I don't have no special ways about it. Anything I do, good or bad, it's very, very natural. That's it. So, that's why I can't do anything twice the same way. I sing "Georgia" every night, just about, not because I want it to be different or I'm trying to make it different, it's just that when I'm bein' natural, it just comes out, because I don't always hear the same thing. I don't hear the same thing every time I sing a song. So, I guess it is a good thing, because the song never gets dull to me.
Sometimes you cry onstage.
That's true, that's true. I'm not embarrassed about that. It's just that some nights, man, I guess my mood, you know. And I don't know what happens in my soul, but I can be singin' a song, and for some reason it'll get to me, you know. I'll feel sorry, feel sad. It'll just hurt me or somethin', I don't know. So I cry. Can't hep it.
Do you listen to a lot of today's artists? Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone. . . .
Oh, yeah, well, I like these people's music. I like Marvin Gaye. I like some of the things that Sly's done. I like, you know I'm a great fan of Aretha. I like Stevie Wonder. I like Sinatra. I like Ella Fitzgerald. I like many people, just like I like many varieties of music. On the other hand, say, like here's a guy like – many times, I may go and get out my old Art Tatum records, 'cause I still think that he's the greatest piano player ever lived, bar none. I'm speakin' about playin' jazz music, as we call it. I've never heard nobody before or since this man that could do to a piano what he could do. I've seen some people come fairly close. I mean, a fellow by the name of Peter Nero and Oscar Peterson. Oscar Peterson plays hard like Art Tatum. He's probably about the closest, I guess. The man really was, I don't think he had any competition.
How about Aretha? Do you find that she's been consistent in her music the past five years?
I think so. I think basically Aretha in a great sense is very much like myself. She's right outta the church and she can't help what she sounds like. No more than I can help what I sound like. We both, really, were very devoted to the church, and this is just us. I think there may be some records come out that you may not necessarily care for, but it's still Aretha, and just like the records that come out of me that you might not care for, it's still me.
Has Aretha ever told you why she would record songs you had done before?
No, I don't – we never talk about things like that, man. When I see Aretha, we just talk about everything in the world. When we see each other, if they have a piano, we play, sing to each other and have a ball. The only thing that we've actually talked about doing is maybe one day, if we get lucky, we might get to do some concerts together or maybe record an album together. I mean a full album, instead – because that was an accident in San Francisco. It wasn't even supposed to happen. I just happened to be up in Frisco. I didn't go up there to do this. I was just up there on some other business, and somebody said, "Hey, man, Aretha's playing at Fillmore West," and I said, "Oh, yeah? Well, say, let's go over and catch her." And somebody told her I was there. Now I have her record of "Spirit in the Dark," you know, but I swear to you, I never bothered to try to learn it, because Aretha was singin' it, and I figured after she got through with it, that was the end of it [laughter]. So, actually, she said come up and do somethin'. I said I don't know what to do. She said, "Well, we'll do 'spirit in the Dark.' " I said, "Well, I don't know 'Spirit in the Dark.' " If you listen to the record, you can tell I don't know it. The only thing I can say in the whole record is, "Do you feel it?" [Laughter.] That's all I could think of was do you feel it. And it just turned out that the silly record sold over a million records.
Where did you first meet Quincy Jones?
In Seattle. Quincy was wantin' to learn how to write, and he used to come over to my apartment and get me up early in the mornin', you know, and I'd show him how to voice and put the chord structure for a band together. He'll be the first cat to tell you, man, that in comin' up – he feels, I don't, but he feels he owes an awful lot to me for that. You know, I'm not a teacher, but if I find somebody who really wants to learn, and if they have the basic idea of what they want to learn, I will help them do it. I can't start a kid off from scratch, 'cause I don't have that kind of patience.
Why don't you write any more?
I just don't have the time . . . I'm sorry, but. . .
Did you used to have to find time to write?Well, I had, I didn't have to find. I had a lot of time, because I wasn't workin', and I didn't have the obligations then. Shit, I was starvin'. So what happens with a thing like that is you got plenty of time, so you utilize it. As Jerry can tell you, they used to send me many, many dubs, and I'd play all of them, and if I didn't like anything, I'd say, "OK, well, I know I gotta do a session," so I'd sit down and write one. It's just that I was lucky at it. That's why. . . .
More than that.
[Laughter.] No, it's the truth.
Were there times back then when songs would just come to you anyway, whether you were looking for them or not?
Well, you know, you might hear somebody say something that would give you an idea.
And that doesn't happen anymore?
Well, it not so much doesn't happen, like I said, I don't have time to really – it's a question of how your life is, man, really. There are other things – I think it's a thing of a man spreadin' himself out too thin. Now, I love writing. But I am not a writer. I think it's fair for you to understand that. I am not a true writer. I wrote because maybe I heard an idea or somebody said something or I needed some material and I couldn't find none that suited me, so I sat down and wrote my own. It took weeks.
There are songs you've done – "Yesterday," "Take Me Home Country Roads" or "Look What They've Done to My Song Ma" – that people might be surprised to hear you sing. Where did you find these songs?
"Look What They Done" was a big record, and I heard it on the radio. "Country Roads" I heard on the radio, and I liked them – I liked the songs, not necessarily the way they were done.
Would that also be the case with "Yesterday"?
Right, exactly.
You could hear yourself singing it in your style immediately?
Yeah, right away. When I heard "Yesterday," I could hear myself singin' it the way the record came out. That's the way I judge a song. It's not always a question of whether a song is good or bad, it's a question of whether or not it's somethin' that I can handle, whether I can feel it in my own way. The song may be a marvelous song, like, say, for instance, "Stardust." I love that song, but I'll never record it, because I just can't hear myself into it. And I love the song, now.
Now, I take any song – if you wrote a song right now, you don't have to be a good pianist or good guitarist; as long as you can somehow give me the idea
. . . sometimes I get songs from people, and they try to sing them the way they think I would sing them. Bad mistake. Really bad. The main thing is that – just give me the song period. Because in the end, I'm going to do it the way I hear it. So it's better for the guy – just like the guys who for instance wrote a lot of songs that I do – years ago. But – take "Georgia." That wasn't written for me. The thing is write the song, and then if I like it, I'll find out what I want to do to it.
So it's the lyrics that you watch for that strike you in music.
First of all, I guess I lean toward the lyrics. I guess. If I had to be pinned down – I guess it would be like 51-49, there's not no big gap between the lyrics and the music. But if somebody said, Ray, you can't be even. You gotta pick one. I would probably go with the lyrics, because, you know, in lyrics, you can say the whole thing in two sentences. For instance, I'll just give you an example. I think that just the thought, I can't stop loving you – boom. I mean, that's said a lot for people. It's like Aretha singin' "What you want, baby? I got it." I mean, she can say doo doo too too – anything after that. Every woman in the world, whether she admits it or not, knows that she wants to say this to her man – What you want, baby. I got it. You understand me? That's – you see, it's little things like that that affect people. "What'd I Say" was – had a good rhythm pattern to it, but if you want to take any lyrics outta that, you know – during those days, it's like a guy says, "See the girl with the red dress." People can be synonymous with that, you know. "See the girl with the diamond ring. She knows how to shake that thing." It wasn't the diamond ring that got 'em.
Writing your songs, you were in the mainstream of blues and jazz, but in picking music, I find you doing kind of a schmaltzy song like "Breathless," comparing a person to a bird or an angel. You've always done Broadway showtunes along with blues, jazz, and country, so you've never allowed yourself to get categorized.
I heard somebody one time say that all black people got rhythm. Bullshit. Ain't no such thing as that. You cannot generalize with people. You can say if you want that maybe the bulk of the people go a certain way. You understand?
How would you explain the current success of black artists and music on the pop charts?
I'll tell you, I'm probably the worst person in the world to comment on that. Now, if you ask about my music, that's a different situation. But I think the kids that are coming up in the pop field, they are saying, "Look, we want to know about great artists, because it's a part of our culture." So they want to know about the people who play the blues, who play the gospel music, the real music that we have – which is not a putdown for your classical music, you know – it's just to say that our roots in music . . . America really only has, as far as I know, jazz. And whether jazz – where you're gonna find, really, the roots of jazz, you're gonna find it among the black people – the blues and the gospel music and everything else.
Was Tangerine Records part of the ABC deal? That you would have your own company?
Yeah, you could say that. First, when I started out with ABC as an artist, I also was a producer there, and when it was time for renewing my contract, I said, "Well, look, you'll have to come up with somethin' more to my liking." You know, it's not always a question of money, it's a question of the things that I want done, and so this was integrated in the contract.
Has Tangerine generally done well?We lost quite a bit of money in the beginning of it, and so naturally, when you open up shop, you lose money, you stay in the red for quite a while, and here lately we're not makin' a lot of money. We have gotten out of the red. So that is progress.
How many artists are there in the personal management firm? At one time, you were doing Billy Preston
.
We're just not managing anymore. I tried that, and I found in tryin' to manage cats, man, I can't stay with the hassling of it. So I just decided what I'd do, if anything, is get an artist, and I just sign him up and have him to record, and that's about it. Just let him do his own managing, get his own manager or whatever. It's too much of headache, and entertainers, I must say, we tend to be very difficult, and I just feel that it's a little more than I can handle.
Are you a really difficult person to work with?Well, that depends on how you look at it. I would say no, and then there are people who would say yes. You have to ask someone who works for me. I'm not a difficult person, I don't think, but I do insist that since we are pros, we oughtta act like it. I don't like to play. I love to have fun in my work, but if it's somethin' wrong, let's clean that up and get that right. Let's not play about that, 'cause it ain't funny when it's wrong. It's funny and beautiful and lovable and everything when it's right, you know what I mean. And I'll go along with you.
What is the "fine" system with the band?
We always gonna have that, man. I don't mean to have it, but unfortunately, you can't just fire a man all the time. My fine system works this way: I may fine a guy once. Never over twice. After that he's fired, period. Because I figure, if I gotta be finin' you, then we don't need each other. I don't need the fine money; I don't even want it. What I do, I take the fine and maybe later in the year give a party or somethin' for the musicians. So they really get it back.
It's not finin', it's a dock in pay. The union says that I can't fine a person, but I can dock them. For the man who's not getting the money, it's the same thing. $25 is $25 or $50 is $50.
Do you plan any further extension of Ray Charles Enterprises into other media? Say, buying a radio station?
No. I'll tell you, I have thought of lookin' around, and I haven't really proceeded, but I've sort of left a couple of small hints around. I'm not so much tryin' to make more money. I figure I pretty much got enough money to last me the rest of my life.
Leonard Feather once called you "a nervous, restless millionaire."
Well, I guess if you were talkin' about my, you know, with the assets and so forth – I guess if you wanted to you could call me a millionaire. I wouldn't say that. I figure I got everything it takes me to live. I got a home that's paid for, hell, and my kids are straight for the rest of their life. I got a little studio here and I can do my work in. Well, you know, I got a car, a couple of airplanes. What the hell more you want? Shit, you can sleep in but one bed at a time. And according to the law, you ain't supposed to have but one woman at a time or at least under the same conditions. [Laughter.] So I got everything I need.
Have you heard much about the new black movies?No, not really. I haven't really delved into it.
Some people have charged that movies like 'Super Fly' romanticize those things in the black culture that are romanticized by, say 'Godfather' or by cowboy movies.
Well, see, you gotta remember that you have the same thing going on in every culture. People may do it a little different, but see, as I read the Bible, I find things in there – all I gotta do is read the Bible and I read the news today. So people kill in every culture. People rape in every culture. People steal in every culture.
I would have to say that I think if I was gonna make a movie of that kind, I would do it in a different way and still say the same thing. I don't think it's so much of what you're saying, it's the way it was being said to make it seem like it's quite glamorous, and I don't think I would have went that far. You see, you should also show in that movie, yeah, you can go out and be a joke dealer, too, but you gotta remember you're gonna wind up killin' a few of your brothers, too, dealin' in that kinda stuff, and you're gonna wind up sendin' quite a few people to jail, and you're gonna wind up breakin' a lotta people's hearts, too, when you're doin' that. 'Cause believe me, man, there's nothin' worse than seein' a 12-year-old kid hooked. I mean, you know when you got coke, you got some heroin around. C'mon now.
Did your own involvement in drugs almost knock you out in music?
No. No. No. Nope. I can't say that.
Heights in music were reached during that stage?Exactly. So I mean, obviously, I couldn't say that, could I? You know, like I say, I ain't never gonna lie to you. It didn't knock me out or wasn't about to knock me out. My thing was that when my kids started growin' up – I remember one day my oldest son, he was one of the baseball players, they were havin' a little reception Thursday night and they were giving out these little trophies, and I was supposed to go, and what happened, I had a recordin' session that night. I was doing the sound track for The Cincinnati Kid, and I did the singin' on that, as you remember, but what I did, I went by there with him to this banquet, and I had to leave before the thing was over, and he cried. And that hurt me. I started thinkin', here's a child. It means so much to him for his father to be at this banquet. And I started thinkin' that suppose that somethin' happened, I get put in jail and somebody comes along and says, "Oh, your daddy's a jailbird." Remember now, he's gettin' up there in age, now. He's a little man, you know, and he gonna cry about that, I figure the next thing he'll do is haul up and knock hell out of 'em, and now he's gonna be in trouble all over me, when you break it down. That was my decision then. I said, look, I mean, that ain't it for me. And I said, OK, I've had enough – it's a risky business, it's a dangerous business, anybody knockin' on your door, you gotta double-check to see who it is.
When was this?
This was like in '64 or '5 or somethin', give or take, I don't know, back in there, anyhow.
That all came to a head right around '65.
That's right. Right then.
Are you still suspect today?Not that I know of. I think everybody knows that I'm deadly serious about that. I am sure, though, that maybe for the first four or five years, I was probably watched very closely. I have seen no evidence of this, don't misunderstand me.
See, I do a lot of travelin', you know, and I don't know what's in a hotel, they may have microphones, all kinda things, you know. And see, I'm always by myself, so I don't know what may be in a place, but I do know this, that I figure it doesn't matter as long as what I said is a fact and I meant it, and from that day to this one, I just felt that it was a bad scene, and really it just was a bad scene. I got involved in it – my situation is, I was young. I was about maybe 17, 18 years old or somethin' like that, and it always, you know, like, it was a thing where I wanted to be among the big fellas, like cats in the band, and these guys would always go and leave the kid "till we come back," you know. And I wanted to be a part, so I begged and pleaded until somebody said, "OK, man, goddamn it, come on all right." And they took me, and there I was, so they were doin' it and I wanted to belong, you know. I mean, this is really how it started, and once it started, there it was, you know. But I never got so involved in it to the point where I was out of my mind or didn't know what the hell I was doin', you know. Like, I heard of people havin' habits of $60 a day or $100 a day. I never had nothin' like that.
How much did you take per day?
Oh, I probably spent about $20. Never got above that.
And you started right with the hardest stuff.
No, I – before I led you put me into that bag, I wanna tell you somethin'. I disagree sorely with people who say that people who smoke pot leads them to usin' heroin. That's bullshit. That's crummy. That's just somebody don't know what they're talkin' about. 'Cause I know far too many people who have never done nothin' but tried to find some good reefer to smoke.
I remember the Man askin' me one time, he said, "Look, if you tell us who the guy was that sold you the stuff and maybe we'll make it easy for you." I said, "Well, I guess you won't make it easy for me, because I'm not gonna tell you nothin'. The man didn't make me buy nothin'. I bought it 'cause I wanted to, and that's not protecting anybody." I searched 'em out to buy it. So they wasn't solicitin' me. I was solicitin' them, seducin' them to sell it to me. It's just that I feel if the officials are going to blackmail me, then that don't make them no better than the people who are out there sellin' it.
What did you learn through the Viennese psychoanalyst?Who?
The psychoanalyst that you were supposed to have seen for a couple of years?
What did we talk about? Nothin'. Like, and he's not a psychoanalyst. I mean, what he was was a psychiatrist. He had no influence, say, as far as my doing or not doing anything. As a matter of fact, we didn't even get into – I told him one thing. I went there and said, "First of all we're gonna get one thing straight. You don't have to convince me not to do anything. I've already made up my mind, I ain't gonna do it, and it's finished. Fine. That's it." And so, when we saw each other we just talked in general about just what ever popped up, and hell, I think I probably talked to him more about his practice, what the hell he was doin' than about myself.
Was that year off hard for you?
I'm basically a lazy person. It's never hard for me to relax. But I do enjoy doin' things. The work I'm doin' is not work to me. It's fun. See, it's like a hobby that I'm gettin' paid for, and truly is part of my relaxation. This is really it for me.
Then why did you take a year off?
Well, I felt that I should do it just because I wanted to. Now, it was necessary, of course. I hired a psychiatrist so that when we went into court, I thought it might be beneficial. You tell as judge somethin' like a cat been usin' somethin' for 15 years, and he all of a sudden the man say he ain't gonna do it no more, and the cat gonna say, "Sure, come on now, let's get down to the facts." But if a psychiatrist says it, for some reason, at least the judge will kinda lean towards believin' the cat. So that was the whole purpose of the whole thing. Because, let's face it, man, if a guy doesn't want to stop doin' somethin', the judge, the psychiatrist, the jailer, ain't nobody gonna – the people stay in jail five years and come out on the street one day right back at it. So obviously jailin' ain't the answer to it, right? And it's a made-up mind of what you want to do with yourself. It's just like people who's smokin', and I felt about that as I think I would feel – let's say the doctor told you, hey, man, you smoke one more cigarette, you be dead in six months. Now if you can make yourself stop under those conditions, you can also make yourself stop if you see somethin' happenin' to your children or somethin' happenin' to your life or whatever. You just tell yourself, look, OK, that's a bad scene. I'm gonna quit. Just stop, you know. And once your mind is made up, that's it. That's all it is, man. I know I'm oversimplifying it, but I swear to you, this is the truth. I believe – I'll tell you somethin', now, I had the psychiatrist, and the man had a legal right to what you call trim me down a little less each day until I got down to nothin'. I didn't do that. OK? Now, that's somethin'. The doctor didn't believe this himself, that I have never in all my years, I've never seen nothin' like this in my life. They even tested me, may. They thought somebody must be slippin' me somethin'. Then, so they cut my visitation off, just to make sure, and I still was the same way, so they said, no, it can't be that. And then, another thing surprised him. Not only was I not doing anything, but they try to say do you want anything to help you sleep? You want any sleepin' pills? I said well, I ain't been takin' sleepin' pills. I don't figure I need to take 'em now. So and that was kind of a shocker. Because the hospital didn't believe it, the doctor didn't believe it. And man, they sent me in–they tested me two or three times, the usual testin' that they do on you. They sent me up here to I think it's MacLaine's Hospital in Boston, because this was ordered by the court. Like, they called me up one day and I'm workin' like hell, you know? Doin' my concerts, and they called me up one day and said, "Hey, we want you to go to MacLaine's Hospital and check in tomorrow." Now that meant one thing. If I was doin' it, they ain't no way in the world I could get it outta my system in a day. So they sent me up there. Not only did they send me there, but what they did, they waited until the weather got kinda cool. Now they know if you usin' any kinda drugs, you can't stand that cold. You just can't take it. So, man, they cut off the heat on me. Made me mad as hell. I went up and told the nurse I'm gonna sue the goddamn hospital if I catch cold. I know what y'all been doin'. I want some heat put back in my room. I mean, I'm not stupid. But, I'm literally freezin'. So you put the heat back in there. I'll be damned if I – once I leave here, I got to go back to work, and I refuse to have pneumonia behind some bull. I guess the woman must have said they can't be nothin' wrong with this man, after all the testin' we done and everything else, and all he can do is get mad, you know. So after a while they got to believe me, but it took an awful lot of doin', because it was unusual, quite unusual.
This came after your stay at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California?
Yeah, well, this was somethin' ordered by the court. This was part of my thing. They didn't tell me I couldn't work or nothin', they just said, look, any day we might call you, you know, and say this to you. What they did, they watched my schedule and knew I was workin', so they knew of a day when I wasn't workin'. They knew my schedule better than me, and all of a sudden they just bam – you just got to go, man. So they did test me a couple of times just to make sure. I didn't have a wind-down program. I just stopped, period. You hear about people who bite the sheets and eat up the pillow, and I didn't do none of that. So that worried people. They took all my clothes. They searched them. And they came in my room one day, they looked under the mattress, shit. I said "I don't know what the hell you all lookin' for, but they ain't any way in the world I can get anything. Nobody's comin' here, and I don't know where I could find it." And you know they watched me like a hawk.
You were once asked about the messages in your songs; or, rather, the lack of messages. Only last year, in fact, did you devote an album, 'Message from the People,' to anything but love songs. Was there a particular moment that you thought was right for such an album?
No, it was a matter of getting material I could handle. Believe it or not, it is very difficult to make an album like that, unless you're just tryin' to throw somethin' together. Remember I got to first feel the music, do somethin' with the song. And that's why in that album you have a song like "America." I wasn't tryin' to just say the country is all bad, because it ain't all bad. I love this country, man. And I wouldn't live in no place else. You understand. My family was born here. My great-grandparents were born here. I think I got as much roots in this country as anybody else. So I think when somethin's wrong, it's up to me to try to change it. I was sayin' that America is a beautiful country. It's just some of our policies that people don't dig. That's what "Hey Mister" is all about. How can you live in the richest country in the world – I can see havin' po' people, don't misunderstand me, you always gonna have the po'. But ain't no need to have no hungry people, because if you got a million dollars, and I ain't got say $30,000, I'm po' compared to you. But the difference is that in a country with so much, where we pay people not to grow food, ain't no reason for us to have hungry people.
When did you see Nixon?Yesterday.
How did that happen?He had heard about – somehow he found out about my work with sickle cell, you know, and that's what it is. Of course, his daughter is very interested in sickle cell, also . . . what's her name, Julie? Yeah. That's her name. Eisenhower? Yeah. Her. And evidently, somebody told her or he heard it some kinda way, you know. Anyway, we went over there yesterday mornin'. We were supposed to be there like 15 minutes, and we talked for 30 minutes.
Did you go into his office?Right in the office. I was quite honored. I mean, after all, he is the President of the United States. It's just–my thing is that I know that somebody – many times when you're workin' hard and you run into all kinds of difficult situations and irritations and things like that, and sometimes, you know, you feel that maybe nobody out there hears you, if you know what I mean. It's nice to know once in a while that somebody did.
Who did the talking?I think it was, believe it or not, 50-50. The conversation never lagged.
Did you feel inside that you wanted to say several things that you've been saying onstage; "Hey Mister"?Uh, no, because first place, I got the assurance before I went there – because the one thing I did not want – now, see, the way they explained it to me was that the President wanted to speak to me about sickle cell. Now, well, first it came off like this, well, the President would like to see you at the White House, you know. Well, the first thing come into my mind, well, you know, like, I'm not – first of all I'm not, I may not necessarily be a McGovernite, but on the other hand, I'm certainly not a Republican, either. So, therefore, I had no interest in politics whatsoever. But they said. "No, the President really wants to congratu – to thank you for your work in sickle cell, and that's really all he wants." Sure enough, we didn't get into politics. If I like a person who is a politician I will contribute to the cause, because they do have to have money. I'm not gonna go out and stomp for this person or that, but I do the same thing as I was doing for Martin Luther. I would go out and do concerts and help raise money, because as I told him, I'm never goin' to get in none of your picket lines. I'm not about to go an' march with you, you understand. And if I can help it, I ain't goin' to jail, you see? And that is not because I didn't want what they wanted. I figured, as I told him, everybody in this movement ought to have a function. They oughtta do what they can do best to support it. Well, I figure what I can do best is help raise money to buy the food for these people that are marchin', to help pay the attorneys' fees, because you got to have money to hire good lawyers to fight this. And you ain't gonna get the money marchin'.
Or if you're in jail.Right, plus I can't see how to at least duck if somebody throw somethin'.
You said onstage that "I Gotta Do Wrong" is "the story of my life," that "I gotta do wrong before they notice me."Well, I kind of think that what I meant was is that it seems that out of all the pleading that a people can do, all the crying out and all the conversations, you know, we've had than for years and years and years, and nothin' really happened. They said, well, those people are happy, and they're smiling and dancing, and so they must be cool. And nobody paid them the mind, until the people began to do wrong things. And, of course, what I was really saying is not that this was anything to be proud about. I was saying that it's something to be ashamed of, that you got to do wrong before a country as rich as we are – we're the richest country in the world. We got more money and we got more of everything. I don't care what any other country's got for the most part, we got that, and the chances are, nine times out of ten, we got more of it on top of it. And it's a shame that in order for our leaders to really pay us some attention, we gotta go and burn this down, and we gotta go and break into this, and we gotta go and picket this, and we gotta go and stand on this lawn – that's pitiful.
On the other hand, you take the Indian. What has he got? We found him here when we got here. But I guarantee you – well, hopefully this doesn't happen. This may be bad for me to say this, because I don't wanna start anything, but you know, the chances are the Indian's never gonna get a damn thing until he go out and scalp a few people, you understand, and do a little wrong. And then, he'll have the same questions we used to have. "Well, what's wrong with him? I can't understand. What's he asking for? What does he want?" Everybody knows what is needed or what is desired, what it is to help a man lead a decent life. Everybody who's in power – the leaders know this, but they're not – unfortunately, it doesn't seem like they want to do anything unless they're forced to it, unless they are made to feel shame about it. And when I sing this song – I gotta do wrong before people notice me – I'm not braggin' about that. I'm saying that that's a pity. It is, it's sad, man. So when the Indian goes out and he kills off or scalps a couple of people, and they go and burn down a couple of buildings, or whatever it is that's necessary, and when our officials begin to notice, then he'll get a little more, too. I feel bad to have to say that. Now he's gotta go and destroy somethin'. Get out the National Guard and the federal troops and everything else, you know, to quiet the people down. There's a man, I understand, who was asking for something that we wanted to throw away. This was Alcatraz or somethin'. We said we don't want the place out there no more, and the man said, "OK, this belongs to us anyway, let us have it." We wouldn't even give him that, somethin' we don't want, we wouldn't give it to 'im. That's sick. Sick! I'm gonna get mad now.
"America?!" the queen exclaims, in a high, throaty black voice. "You goin' to America? You gonna find Ray Charles?"
* * *
Ray Charles is one of the great ones, a genius, as he's been called for some 13 years, or, as Sinatra put it, "the only genius in the business." He is the major influence on dozens of blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and rock & roll musicians. Joe Cocker idolized him, from faraway England, to the point of imitation. So did Billy Preston, who would show up at Ray's doorstep in L.A. to audition. Aretha Franklin called him "the Right Reverend," and Georgia legislator Julian Bond picked up the beat, in a poem called "The Bishop of Atlanta: Ray Charles," finishing:
Throbbing from the gutter
On Saturday night
Silver offering only
The Right Reverend's back in town
Don't it make you feel all right?
Ray Charles' 26 years in the business are represented by some 40 albums. He got his first gold record with "What'd I Say" for Atlantic Records in the summer of 1959, seven years after he'd joined that label. Charles then switched to ABC and began a streak with "Georgia on My Mind," "Ruby," and "Hit the Road Jack." He topped them all with a country & western album that gave him a three-million-selling single, "I Can't Stop Loving You," along with criticism from fans who didn't want to hear the Genius kicking shit. Others, like Gladys Knight, listened: "Ray Charles," She said, "hipped a lot of the black people to country & western bands . . . we was kind of listening before, but he made it even more down-to-earth where you could dig it." And Quincy Jones, long-time friend and arranger with Charles, appreciated his pioneer sense of eclecticism: "Ray Charles was responsible," he said, "for us opening our ears to all kinds of music."
Born September 23rd, 1930, in Albany, Georgia, Ray first jumped onto a piano bench, for fun, at age five in Greensville, Florida, where his parents had moved into what he remembered as a "shotgun house" – "If you stood on the porch and shot a gun you'd go right through it". Over the next two years, he lost his sight (he had been stricken with glaucoma, doctors determined years later); his parents, Bailey and Araetha, were laborers who couldn't afford medical help. "When I wroke up in the mornings," Charles recalled, "I'd have to pry my eyes open." Blinded, he learned to work to help out, washing clothes, scrubbing floors, even chopping wood, until he went to blind school in Orlando, Florida. He studied music there – he'd begun to pick out tunes on a neighbor's piano by age seven – and by 15 was writing arrangements for big bands he heard in his imagination. Then his mother died, following his father by five years, and Charles left school to go to work, playing in combos around Georgia and Florida. He was "crawling," he said, until he split to Seattle and got a record contract from Swingtime, a small label. He cut "Confession Blues," then had his first success, "Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand," done in the style of one of his main influences – or, as Johnny Otis put it, "It was a wonderful thing, but he definitely was aping Charles Brown." Ray would soon develop his own fusion of blues, jazz and gospel, touring with Lowell Fulson, then forming a backup group for Ruth Brown in New York. He returned to Seattle and formed the Maxim Trio, worked at the Rocking Chair club and on local TV, and found himself signed to Atlantic Records when Swingtime sold his contract. First sessions were done with studio musicians (and, one time, with a pickup band including a Mexican-dominated horn section at a radio studio in New Orleans). At Atlantic, Ray began to write arrangements and compose his own great songs, blended gospel with a rocking R&B sound, formed a septet, cut "I Got a Woman," and moved into the first of Many heights.
And all the time, he was on junk. He'd been using heroin since 1948, when he was 18, and he'd been busted before, around 1956, but it had all been kept hushed. Then, in 1965, Charles was arrested in Boston, reportedly in possession of a planeload of heroin, and entered a hospital in Lynwood, California. According to published stories, he spent three months undergoing medical and psychiatric help, followed by a year off. He saw a Viennese psychoanalyst regularly.
Charles has his own version of his involvement with drugs, but over the years, he has refused to discuss it. When Playboy asked him, in 1970, how he started, he begged off the question. Asked if he might not be an influence to stop potential drug-users, he replied: "Bullshit. Everybody's aware that cigarettes probably cause cancer, but how many people do you think would give them up just because Ray Charles stopped smoking?" And, he continued, "I'm fed up with talking about that aspect of my life. Jesus Christ couldn't get me to say another word on the subject to anybody." Downbeat, in fact, must have had the devil on retainer; an article on Charles in the jazz publication took the form of an apologetic memo to future interviewers of Ray Charles, warning them not to ask him about narcotics. Instead, they were advised, accentuate the positive! Write about him knowing how to produce his own records! In his own studios! For his own label! How he plays chess and repairs radios and TVs! How he could even fly his own plane if he had to! How he helps fight Sickle Cell Anemia! How he's gotten all these Grammies and awards! Let the good times roll!
But when you call him the epitome of the American Dream, as Whitney Balliett did in the New Yorker, that's pretty positive. And yet, you've got to know that there were some nightmares along the way.
In two short sessions with Ray Charles, in a dressing room in San Francisco and in his recording studio in Los Angeles, I found him an articulate man, sometimes volatile in defense of his pride, deep-steeped to the point of repetition in telling what to him was the truth, and seemingly inclined to halve that "truth" sometimes, in discussing the beatdown aspects of his life. Example: He says, in the interview, he has maintained sales figures between 300,000 and 800,000 per album through the years. Fact, from ABC, which distributes his Tangerine Records: His best record in recent years, Message from the People, sold 250,000. Volcanic Action of My Soul, released in 1971, sold about 200,000. And the three albums before Volcanic "did even less." His most recent pop chart single, said the ABC executive, was "Don't Change on Me," in June, 1970.
Example: The sudden shift from Atlantic to ABC. Charles says it was for a big money deal, and that he gave Atlantic a chance to match the offer. Sources at Atlantic insist that Charles had people around him who got him to sign the ABC deal before Atlantic even learned about it.
So when we got the conversation around to dope, to his 19-year addiction to heroin, it was a surprise to hear Ray plunge into his hooking and kicking, and it was no surprise that the stories sometimes seemed, in at least two definitions of that word, fantastic. Example: Ray says he took that year off the road, after his bust in '65, to make the courts happy (he continued to produce records, including "Crying Time" and "Let's Go Get Stoned"). He'd kicked even before the bust, he hinted in our talk. But Ron Granger, who was director of Tangerine for three years and knew Charles from long ago, told us: "He took that year off to kick it. It took a year."
But the man is clean, a nonstop worker, a perfectionist/taskmaster devoted to his music. He moves around his office building with ease, with no cane, still missing a stairstep now and then as he moves between control room and main studio, instructing musicians, running the console, re-doing his vocals. He is a gentleman as I toss in questions over an 11-hour mixing session. Sometimes, ego challenged, there's volcanic action, as he stands up, all dressed in black, and shouts a reply, punctuating it with a "Hel-lo!" before he sits again. In his hotel room, with milk in the refrigerator and coffee and toast on the table, he writhes on the couch, sits forward pensively, falls almost onto his knee to find another restful position. He's just returned from a visit to President Nixon at the White House, where he accepted praise for his work as honorary chairman of the sickle cell foundation. ("It was a gas!" he would tell reporters; to me, he said he might even vote for Nixon, given his record of hiring Negroes and given McGovern's strange changes.)
We accentuated the positive for a bit, talked about how he plays chess with a specially carved set, how he admired Bobby Fischer for insisting on championship playing conditions, how he "saw" baseball games by going to the stadium with a transistor at his ear, how he chose the songs for the new album, Through the Eyes of Love. We began by asking him to recall himself as a five year-old, when his eyes began to run, to hurt.
* * *
It didn't happen like one day I could see 100 miles and the next day I couldn't see an inch. It was, each day for two years my sight was less and less. My mother was always real with me, and bein' poor, you got to pretty much be honest with your children. We couldn't afford no specialists. I was lucky I could get a doctor – that's a specialist.
When you were losing your sight, did you try to take in as much as possible, to remember things?
I guess I was too small to really care that much. I knew there were things I liked to watch. I used to love to look at the sun. That's a bad thing for my eyes, but I liked that. I used to love to look at the moon at night. I would go out in the back yard and stare at it. It just fascinated the hell out of me. And another thing that fascinated me that would scare most people is lightnin'. When I was a kid, I thought that was pretty. Anything like brightness, any kind of lights. I probably would've been a fire bug or somethin'.
And there were colors. I was crazy about red. Always thought it was a beautiful color. I remember the basic colors. I don't know nothin' about chartreuse and all – I don't know what the hell that is. But I know the black, green, yellow, brown and stuff like that. And naturally I remember my mother, who was pretty. God, she was pretty. She was a little woman. She must have been about 4'11", I guess, and when I was 12 or 13, I was taller and bigger than my mother, and she had this long pretty black hair, used to come way down her back. Pretty good-lookin' chick, man [laughter].
A lot of people have asked you to define soul. I'd like to get a definition of beauty.
If you're talkin' about physical beauty, I would have to say that to me beauty is probably about the same thing that it means to most people. You look at them and the structure of their face, the way their skin is, and say like, a woman, the contour of her body, you know what I mean? The same way as I would walk out and feel the car. Put my hands on the lines of a car, and I'd know whether I'd like it or not from the way the designs of the lines are. As I said, I was fortunate enough to see until I was about seven, and I remember the things that I heard people calling beautiful.
How about beauty in music?
I guess you could call me a sentimentalist, man, really. I like Chopin or Sibelius. People who write softness, you know, and although Beethoven to me was quite heavy, he wrote some really touching songs, and I think that Moonlight Sonata – in spite of the fact that it wound up being very popular – it's somethin' about that, man, you could just feel the pain that this man was goin' through. Somethin' had to be happenin' in that man. You know, he was very, very lonesome when he wrote that. Anyway, I thought that with the exception of just two or three compositions, he was a little bit heavy for me. Just like from a technical point of view, I think Bach, if you really want to learn technique, that was the cat, 'cause he had all them fugues and things, your hands doin' all kinda different things. Personally, outside of technique, I didn't care for Bach, but I must say, in order for you to make your hands be able to do different things from each other, he was the greatest in the world for that.
Did you try to catch up with high school or college after you left school?
No. When I left school, I had to get out and really tough it, as you know, because my mother passed away when I was 15. I didn't have no brothers or sisters. But my mama always taught me, "Look, you got to learn how to get along by yourself," and she's always tellin' me, "Son, one of these days I'm gonna be dead, and you're gonna need to know how to survive, because even your best friends, although they may want to do things for you; after all, they will have their own lives." So at that point I started tryin' to help myself. So what do I do to help myself? The thing I can do best, or figure I can do best, anyway. And that is sing or play the piano or both.
What else did they teach you in school that could have been applied to a career?
Well, I don't know where I would have used it, but I can probably type as fast as any secretary. Well, not any, I can type about 60-65 words a minute, somethin' like that when I wanna. Then I can make all kinds of things with my hands. I can make chairs and brooms and mops and rugs and pocketbooks and belts and all kinds of things like that. So guess if I had to, I would go and buy me some leather. I love to work with my hands, and I'm sure that's what I would do had I not played music, you see, because it's the kind of a thing that you can use plenty of imagination in it, you know what I mean? And so I know how to do various kinds of stitchin' Mexican stitchin' and regular stitchin' overlappin' it and stuff. So I guess I would have – although it would have been a very meek livin', I suppose. You can't turn out a lot by hand.
Music was a meek living for a long time, too.
Yeah, it was really crawlin'. I became very ill a couple times' I suffered from malnutrition, you know. I was really messed up because I wasn't eatin' nothin', and I wouldn't beg. I refused to beg. I'd say hell, I'd starve first. I mean, this is just embedded in me as a child. You don't beg. You go and try to offer your services or somethin', but if you ask somebody for somethin' and they don't give it to you, you don't beg them for it. Two things you don't do, you don't beg and you don't steal. And I don't do neither right now. That's right.
Did you get to the point where you actually did steal?
No. No. Those are the two things I would not do, and I don't do it now.
What kind of music education did you have in Florida?
They taught you how to read the music, and I had to play Chopin, Beethoven, you know, the normal thing. Just music lessons. Not really theory. I don't know what that is. It's just, they taught me how to read music, and naturally how to use correct fingerin', and once you've learned that you go from the exercises into little compositions into things like Chopin. That's the way it went, although I was tryin' to play boogie-woogie, man, 'cause I could always just about play anything I heard. My ear was always pretty good, but I did have a few music teachers, and so I do know music quite well, if you don't mind my saying so. I was never taught to write music, but when I was 12 years old I was writing arrangements for a big band. Hell, if you can read music, you can write it, and I think certainly what helped me is that I'm a piano player, so I know chords. Naturally, I can hear chords, and I could always play just about anything I could hear. It was just a question of learning how to put it down on paper. I just studied how to write for horns on my own. Like, understanding that the saxophone is in different keys, and also, when I was goin' to school I took up clarinet. See, I was a great fan of Artie Shaw. I used to think, "Man, ooh, he had the prettiest sound," and he had so much feelin' in his playin'. I always felt that, still feel it today. I mean, it's amazing, I don't know why he stopped playin', but I always thought he was one of the best clarinet players around, bar none. So I took up clarinet as well as piano, but piano was the first thing I took up.
Where were you hearing this boogiewoogie?
We lived next door for some years to a little general store, that's what it was, 'cause this is a country town, remember, Greensville, Florida, and it had a little store there where the kids could come in and buy soda pop and candy and the people could buy kerosene for their lamps, you know. And they had a jukebox in there. And the guy who owned it also had a piano. Wylie Pittman is the guy, even when I was three and four years old, if I was out in the yard playin', and if he started playin' that piano, I would stop playin' and run in there and jump on the stool. Normally, you figure a kid run in there like that and jump on the stool and start bangin' on the piano, the guy would throw him off. "Say, get away from here, don't you see me". . . but he didn't do that. I always loved that man for that. I was about five years old, and on my birthday he had some people there. He said, "RC" – This is what they called me then – "look, I want you to get up on the stool, and I want you to play for these people." Now, let's face it. I was five years old. They know damn well I wasn't playin'. I'm Just bangin' on the keys, you understand. But that was encouragement that got me like that, and I think that the man felt that any time a child is willin' to stop playin', you know, out in the yard and havin' fun, to come in and hear somebody play the piano, evidently this child has music in his bones, you know. And he didn't discourage me, which he could have, you know what I mean? Maybe I wouldn't have been a musician at all, because I didn't have a musical family, now remember that.
You were also able to hear 'The Grand Ole Opry' when you were a kid?
Yep, yeah, I always – every Saturday night, I never did miss it. I don't know why I liked the music. I really thought that it was somethin' about country music, even as a youngster – I couldn't figure out what it was then, but I know what it is now. But then I don't know why I liked it and I used to just love to hear Minnie Pearl, because I thought she was so funny.
How old were you then?
Oh, I guess I was about seven, eight, and I remember Roy Acuff and Gene Austin. Although I was bred in and around the blues, I always did have interest in other music, and I felt the closest music, really, to the blues – they'd make them steel guitars cry and whine, and it really attracted me. I don't know what it is. Gospel and the blues are really, if you break it down, almost the same thing. It's just a question of whether you're talkin' about a woman or God. I come out of the Baptist church, and naturally whatever happened to me in that church is gonna spill over. So I think the blues and gospel music is quite synonymous to each other.
Big Bill Broonzy once said that "Ray Charles has got the blues he's cryin' sanctified. He's mixin' the blues with the spirituals. . . . He should be singin' in a church."I personally feel that it was not a question of mixing gospel with the blues. It was a question of singin' the only way I knew how to sing. This was not a thing where I was tryin' to take the church music and make the blues out of it or vice versa. All I was tryin' to do was sing the only way I knew how, period. I was raised in the church. I went to the Sunday school. I went to the morning service, and that's where they had the young people doin' their performin', and I went to night service, and I went to all the revival meetings. My parents said, "You will go to church." I mean they ain't no if about that. So singin' in the church and hearin' this good singin' in the church and also hearin' the blues, I guess this was the only way I could sing, outside of loving Nat Cole so well, and I tried to imitate him very much. When I was starting out, I loved the man so much until I really – that's why I can understand a lot of other artists who come up and try to imitate me. You know, when you love somebody so much and you feel what they're doin' is close to what you feel, some of that rubs off on you – so I did that.
But, say, Joe Cocker is a white man, and British; you were emulating a fellow black.
That's right, but man, look, I want you to – please, if you can ever put this into words, 'cause I can't say it, but if you can ever find a way to say this – I wish to hell that people could do one thing. We don't have to lose our identity. Nobody does, because they happen to do a certain thing. I feel that you've got great basketball players – white and black ones. You got great musicians – white and black ones. I've heard where a person says, "Well, damn, you know one thing, man, I didn't realize that guy was white until" . . . or, "I didn't realize that this person was black until . . . " You understand what I'm sayin? I'm not the kind of a guy that wants to generalize and say that you can't do this if you're black or you can't do that if you're white. I think that if a man has had the kicking around and the abuse and the scorn, I think that if he has talent, he can put that some way or another so that the people can hear him. I remember one time a guy asked me, hey, man, do you think a white cat could ever sing the blues? Which is a legitimate question. It didn't hurt my feelings. I feel that anybody, if you ever have the blues bad enough, with the background that dictates to the horror and the sufferin' of the blues, I don't give a damn if he's green, purple – he can give it to ya.
It was said that Joe Cocker, or his people, were picking out more of the contemporary rock and roll material that was popular with a large segment of the young audience. . . .When you say he has a bigger whatever-it-was with the "young audience"– what young audience? All right now. Come on, now. I guarantee you [shouting] you got far more people who know . . . you're talkin' about the overall white audience. Let's call a spade a spade or whatever. . . .
Young, white audience. . . .
Well, I don't care what you call it, I don't care whether it's two years old, five, I don't care what you call it – the fact – you can never get away from it, man, it's just no way to get away from this. I am not saying it out of bitterness. I'm just telling you the truth of the matter, and I'm old enough. Hell, I'm 42 years old. I never joke with Ray about realism, and the fact of the matter is here's Joe Cocker, here's a guy – listen, I'll tell you something' – I guess about 10, well, it's back there more than that – maybe 13-14 years ago, they had ads in the paper where they were tryin' to find anybody to sing like me. You think about that for a minute. You see?
I guarantee Joe Cocker ain't never appealed more to the young people who raised me up. He appeals to the young white because he's white. Shit, man. That ain't a mad statement, that's just the truth. [Laughter.] You don't fool around with the truth. When you get a guy who come up and say, like an Elvis Presley, let's face it, man, you had more people goin' out shakin' their behinds and stuff like that. You know where Elvis got that from – he used to be down on Beale Street in Memphis. That's where he saw the black people doin' that. Ain't no way they'd let anybody like us get on TV and do that, but he could 'cause he's white. Now, see, I don't like to bring the racial thing in this, but unfortunately, the way we are set up, the whole thing is man, I guarantee you, Nat "King" Cole go down there in Alabama and sing these love songs and they'd beat him up. You understand what I mean? Why? Not because he's doin' a bad job, but because the young white girls run up and say, "Oh, Nat!" and they say, "No, we can't have that." Come on, man, shit, that's where it is.
I don't have time to be bitter. What I have time for is to try to see what I can do to help the guy that's comin' up and maybe he can make it better if I can help him. You see? I done seen all this, man. I know all about the places where I couldn't drink outta the fountain. I know all about the places I couldn't go to the bathroom when I had to pee – somethin' that's natural for every human bein'. You understand me? And if I do it on the highway and the cop see me, he gonna put me in jail for it and maybe beat my head, too. Depend on where I am. See, I know all about that, but I don't want to let that get into what I'm doin'. I figure that, OK, I'm in this business because I love music. So I can't afford to let bitterness get into me, but if when you ask me what's really happenin', if you get people and sit them down and say, hey, man, let's cut all the fat outta this.
Get down to the real thing. What is it? This is the real thing I'm tellin' you now. That's without bitterness and I ain't mad. I can afford to tell you that for one reason; you see, thank the Lord, I'm fairly cool about it. My kids ain't gonna starve unless they bomb the country or somethin' with nuclear weapons or somethin'. Man, I'm pretty straight, and I can tell you all about both ends of it. I know how it is when you have to use a piece of like cardboard to put your shoes on when you don't have a slipper spoon, and I know how it is to live in a $200,000 house.
What keeps me from being bitter about this – the reason that this happens is because people who are in power tend to lean toward themselves. It's the same as a guy who is in a house. He has his own house, he's got his own, whatever it is, his own family. Well, let's face it, he may love you, but if it's somethin' comin' up, he's gonna tend to lean towards – if he can get his own kids in there, he tends to go that way, you understand? I think this is basically what happens in the structure of our society. It's a capitalistic country, and it's a white society, and they control. They got the money. They got the airplanes, the bombs, every goddamn thing. You name it, they got it. So therefore, naturally you have, what is it? – 15-20 percent black, you got 80-85 percent white. Fine. So, as a result of that, if you're not careful, you can become very bitter, because you'll say, well, why in the world – here I am, and here's a guy who'll spend millions of dollars to find a white cat just to imitate me, and he'll do far better than me. Well, the only thing that I can say that sort of helps me a little bit, that keeps me goin' – I say two things. First of all, in order for that guy to copy me, he gotta wait 'til I do it first. Now [laughter], the second thing I feel, well, if this is the case, if you take this guy over me and he's just an imitation of me, then that says to me that I must be pretty damn good. Because I don't know nobody that you wanna copy that ain't worth a damn. All right, hello. [Laughter.]
That says it?
That say it all, man. I mean, that's your salvation, 'cause if you don't think like that, you'll be bitter. You really would be bitter.
Other critics have said that when Aretha moved from Columbia to Atlantic, she enjoyed immense success, while you moved to ABC and in the mid-Sixties, you were on kind of a downhill critical slide with records.
Yeah?
Now, how did you feel about that?
Oh, I don't know. I guess that's probably some cat who didn't see my financial sheet. I don't really worry about that, you know. Fortunately for me, throughout my career – now it's true, I haven't had a million seller every time I put out a record, but what has happened with me has been a very simple thing. I've had those 400,000, 700,000, 300,000, 800,000, and that's been constantly goin' on all through my career. I'll tell you what my answer is: When I can walk into an airport and you get little kids sayin', [whispering] "Mama that's Ray Charles," I'm raisin' them. That's where I'm at, man. As long as the people keep doin' that, as long as I can walk anywhere and as I'm walkin' all I can hear is [whispering] "That's Ray Charles!" I don't figure I need to worry too much.
Now, you say this is in the mid-Sixties, right? I just wanna ask you a dumb question. Tell me, what was wrong with "Crying Time"? That was in the mid-Sixties. "Let's Go Get Stoned." I didn't find nothin' wrong with these songs. I mean, they seemed to sell all right.
First of all, I don't tell myself what some people say: "Well, Ray, the genius" I never called myself a genius. I'm not the one to do that, brother. I think that's up to the people to decide, and if they give me the impression, well, Ray, you been out here a long time now, but we want to turn you out to pasture now, you know, that would be all right with me, because hell, I figure whatever I ain't got in 27 years, I don't deserve to have it. Because I've had every opportunity to do what I need.
There was also criticism that you were coasting on your name, your past success.
Well, let me tell you somethin', honey, I never coast. Never. I want to say this to you so if you can dramatize or use any kind of exclamation points – I never coast on nothin'. Before I coast, I quit. Because remember one thing, man. I owe somethin' to Ray first. It's to me. I ain't ever gonna lie to Ray. I can't bull me.
We were talking about when you started out. You played what was called "cocktail music," playing piano and singing songs like "If I Give You My Love." But were you always looking to form your own big band?
Well, when I was doing what you're talkin' about right now, my only thing, my goal was, "Wow, if I could only just get to make records, too." That's why, in 1948, when they had the union ban on musicians so they weren't allowed to record, I recorded anyway – first of all I didn't know about the ban, and of course, later I had to pay a fine for it – I didn't care. I was only about 17 or somethin' like that. I was workin' in Seattle, then, and a fellow came up from Los Angeles, Jack Lauderdale, and he had a little record company [Swingtime], and I was workin' at the Rockin' Chair. He came and one night he was in there and heard me playing and he said to me, "Listen, I have a record company. I would like to record you." Man, I was so glad, I didn't ask him how much money I was gonna get. I didn't care. I would have done it for nothin'. So he said, "Look, I'm gonna take you down to Los Angeles." And wow, Los Angeles, you know. Ooh, yeah, yeah. And I'm gonna be recorded, man. You know, wow, my own voice on a record. [Laughter.]
I went down there and we made a song called "Confession Blues." That was my first record. Sold pretty good. Then, about a year later, because 1949 we made a song called "Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand." Now that really was a big hit. "Confession Blues" sold mediocre – it sold well enough to suit me, because I was hearing it where I went. But when I was out on the road workin' with Lowell Fulson, he had a big record called "Every Day I Have the Blues." We were on the same label. I had "Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand," and he was singin' "Every Day I Have the Blues," and we were packin' 'em in. This is really where I started touring the country.
By this time you were away from Maxim Trio.
I had left Seattle – and, see, once I went to California, I liked the weather and the way it felt – there was somethin' about the way Los Angeles felt to me, and I wanted to come back there and live. I've always been the kind of a guy, strangely enough, if I like somethin', I try to take hold of it. I've always been that way, and I guess, as I say, it goes back to my mother again, you know. I think that – you know, my mother, she was not a well-educated woman. I think she went to about the fifth grade or somethin' like that in school, but she had, I think this woman had more – I don't know what kind of sense you would call it. We used to call it horse sense, common sense, mother wit, you know. She had, I think, as much of that as God could possibly stick in anybody's brain. She taught me everything that I feel, like she always said, "If you feel somethin', if you like somethin', try to take hold of it, get ahold of it." I've always lived that way.
When you left Florida, why did you choose to go to the other corner of the country?
It was just – New York I was frightful of, 'cause I just couldn't imagine myself goin' to New York or Chicago or even Los Angeles. They sounded so big, man. I guess I always felt that I was pretty good, but I wasn't sure of myself to want to jump out into a big city like New York. I was too scared for that. So what I wanted to do was pick a town that was far away from Florida, but not huge, and Seattle really was about as far away as I could get. All across the US, and of course, it wasn't a huge town, half a million people or somethin' like that.
How long did you stay with Swingtime?
I was there until Atlantic bought the contract. I think it was '51 or so. About three or four years.
That was Ahmet and Herb Abramson and Miriam, I think, at that time. I don't know how that was done. I met with the people at Atlantic, and they said, "Well, I'm under contract to somebody." They said, "Well, look, we'll buy the contract." So I said, "Fine, buy it." And that's it. finished.
Why did you leave Atlantic? Jerry Wexler told me it was a "shock" to him.
Well, you know the people at Atlantic – Jerry, Ahmet, Nesuhi . . . I love all the people over there. It was the kind of thing where ABC came up with a contract. And I think they were trying to lure somebody there, and I hate to say this, because it makes me sound like I'm blowin' my own horn, but you know, I was with Atlantic and we had this big hit "What'd I Say" and a couple other things, so they came up with a contract and I let Jerry and them know about it. The contract was so unreal. I mean, the thing was that, well, if ABC was really seriously gonna do it, Atlantic just couldn't match it, based on the original contract I had with them. But I let them know, because, you know – and that's why today I have to tell you, Ben, that Jerry and I are the best of friends, because I didn't do anything sneaky, in the dark, or nothin' like that. They knew the whole bit, and my thing was, look, I'm not asking you to better ABC's deal, I'm just saying if you can match it, I'll stay with you. And it was the kind of thing where they said, "Look, Ray, it's awfully heavy for us." But you gotta understand from ABC's point of view, they didn't think that the contract was gonna work out that well either, because, remember now, I had been with Atlantic a long time, and most artists, let's face it, they get cold after about four or five years, you know, with any company. And so, the thought is, for Christ's sake, it might be the situation where, well, you know, ABC is searching, they are hunting for an artist that is hot, and Atlantic is feeling, well, groovy, our hearts go out to this guy, but still, they're based upon what our situation is now. It would be rather difficult for us to meet a contract similar to this, so they said, "Look, Ray, we wish you the best."
You gotta understand the position of each party, and of course, ABC at the time was offering me the kind of a contract that, believe me, in those days, in 1959, was unheard of. Now, as a result of that, I tell you, I don't even think that they figured that I would do as well, because, like I say, I've been out there for a while. So what they were basically after was the name and to stimulate other names.
To sign with ABC.
Right. And so I was like a pawn, but as it turned out we were so lucky, because right after I went with ABC, we came up with "Georgia," and then the country-western stuff, see? But I did a country-western song with Atlantic before I went to ABC, but the other side of it sold, the song "I Believe to My Soul." Well, on the back of that was a song called "Keep Movin' On."
Hank Snow.
That's right. There's where I first get the idea. But it just turn out that once I changed contracts, I followed that idea. Now, with ABC we had people saying, "Hey, man, gee whiz, Ray, you got all these fans, you can't do no country-western things. Your fans – you gonna lose all your fans." Well, I said, "For Christ sake, I'll do it anyway." Not to be – don't misunderstand me – I didn't want to be a Charlie Pride, now. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying that was not my intent. I didn't want to be a country-western singer. I just wanted to take country-western songs. When I sing "I Can't Stop Loving You," I'm not singin' it country-western. I'm singin' it like me. But I think the words to country songs are very earthy like the blues, see, very down. They're not as dressed up, and the people are very honest and say, "Look, I miss you, darling', so I went out and I got drunk in this bar." That's the way you say it. Wherein Tin Pan Alley will say, "Oh, I missed you darling, so I went to this restaurant and I sat down and I had dinner for one." That's cleaned up now, you see? But country songs and the blues is like it is.
I did two albums of country-western, you gotta remember I did Volume I, and hell, if you get an album to sell well over a million, you almost gotta do – that's almost forcing you to do one more. But that's all I did with country-western was two albums.
Atlantic gave you musical independence and built a reputation for R&B and jazz. ABC, on the other hand, wasn't known for a sound. Did you have a feeling of trepidation about moving from one to the other?
No, 'cause my thing was that it was a record company, and I thought I could sell records for ABC as well as I could sell records for Atlantic or anybody else. Plus, after all, you gotta understand, man, I had been workin' a long time, strugglin' a mighty long time with nothin', and this was a helluva chance for me to really better myself, if I really had any kind of luck, I really was gonna wind up bein' all right. I made an awful lot of money fast, real fast. I mean, almost too fast. Because I could have had a terrific tax problem – fortunately I didn't – 'cause soon as we got over there, we started havin' some fantastic success right away, and I made a tremendous amount of money quick, and, now, of course, like I told you, I guess I have a little conceit about me. I feel I can do almost anything if I wanna, so I felt, sure, I sold records for Atlantic records. I sold records for Swingtime, and I felt if I did that, sure, I could sell records for ABC, and since this company is gonna guarantee me so much money and along with producin', wow, why fight it, baby?
What was the production deal?
I was producin' myself, you see? In other words, it was a contract within a contract. I got paid the regular top artist scale as an artist, but also the producin' end of it was where the extra money came from. That was where, out of every dime I got seven and a half cents, and that's pretty damn good, man. That's besides the artist contract, you know. You see a cat gonna give you seven and a half cents out of every dime profit, now I don't know . . . [laughter] unbelievable contract, so it's pretty hard to ask a company to pay a cat five percent royalties, whatever it is, and then also give him seven and a half cents out of every dime profit, as a producer of my own records. And so you know the records were successful, you can imagine the amount of money I made so fast, quick. Sorry about that, man. I didn't mean to do it. [Laughter.] What can I tell you?
After Swingtime, when you began searching around for your own voice, did you find it naturally or did you get help from Ahmet or Jerry?
I gotta tell you the truth, man, about Ahmet and Nesuhi and Herb Abramson and Jerry when he came in, these people never at any time told me what to sing or how to sing it. OK? I have to be honest with you. I think if they had told me that, I woulda told them where to take the contract. I figured that whatever I'm doin', I'm gonna do it to the best of my ability. Now you have a right to say you don't want it, but you can't tell me how to do it. I won't allow that. I guess I've always been very firm about that. I didn't have that with Atlantic. I didn't have it with ABC.
All I did, and Jerry can tell you – he never put any pressure on me. I would call him up and say, "Hey, Jerry, I'm ready to record." That's how we did "I Got a Woman." I was on the road, workin' every day. I called him up in New York and said, hey, I'm ready to record. So he said, where are you, where are you gonna be? I said I'd be in Atlanta in a few days. He flew down to Atlanta, Georgia. That's where we made "I Got a Woman." Little studio. Just a little bit – I think it was WGST or somethin'. Little bitty, and they weren't equipped for recording. But we went in there and we struggled and we managed it. That's the way we did it. I mean, I didn't have no pressure on me about doing anything, and I didn't have no pressure on me at ABC neither.
The gospel, call-and-responses in your songs – "Drown in My Own Tears," "What'd I Say," and "Hit the Road Jack" – I'd say, were tremendous influences on Motown's sound. How did that develop?
Well, I don't know how anything . . . I just hear things in my head. That's the simplest answer I can give you, man. What I hear is what comes out, and I'm very instantaneous, I guess. I feel somethin', I get an idea how I want to do it, and I just do it. I don't have no special ways about it. Anything I do, good or bad, it's very, very natural. That's it. So, that's why I can't do anything twice the same way. I sing "Georgia" every night, just about, not because I want it to be different or I'm trying to make it different, it's just that when I'm bein' natural, it just comes out, because I don't always hear the same thing. I don't hear the same thing every time I sing a song. So, I guess it is a good thing, because the song never gets dull to me.
Sometimes you cry onstage.
That's true, that's true. I'm not embarrassed about that. It's just that some nights, man, I guess my mood, you know. And I don't know what happens in my soul, but I can be singin' a song, and for some reason it'll get to me, you know. I'll feel sorry, feel sad. It'll just hurt me or somethin', I don't know. So I cry. Can't hep it.
Do you listen to a lot of today's artists? Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone. . . .
Oh, yeah, well, I like these people's music. I like Marvin Gaye. I like some of the things that Sly's done. I like, you know I'm a great fan of Aretha. I like Stevie Wonder. I like Sinatra. I like Ella Fitzgerald. I like many people, just like I like many varieties of music. On the other hand, say, like here's a guy like – many times, I may go and get out my old Art Tatum records, 'cause I still think that he's the greatest piano player ever lived, bar none. I'm speakin' about playin' jazz music, as we call it. I've never heard nobody before or since this man that could do to a piano what he could do. I've seen some people come fairly close. I mean, a fellow by the name of Peter Nero and Oscar Peterson. Oscar Peterson plays hard like Art Tatum. He's probably about the closest, I guess. The man really was, I don't think he had any competition.
How about Aretha? Do you find that she's been consistent in her music the past five years?
I think so. I think basically Aretha in a great sense is very much like myself. She's right outta the church and she can't help what she sounds like. No more than I can help what I sound like. We both, really, were very devoted to the church, and this is just us. I think there may be some records come out that you may not necessarily care for, but it's still Aretha, and just like the records that come out of me that you might not care for, it's still me.
Has Aretha ever told you why she would record songs you had done before?
No, I don't – we never talk about things like that, man. When I see Aretha, we just talk about everything in the world. When we see each other, if they have a piano, we play, sing to each other and have a ball. The only thing that we've actually talked about doing is maybe one day, if we get lucky, we might get to do some concerts together or maybe record an album together. I mean a full album, instead – because that was an accident in San Francisco. It wasn't even supposed to happen. I just happened to be up in Frisco. I didn't go up there to do this. I was just up there on some other business, and somebody said, "Hey, man, Aretha's playing at Fillmore West," and I said, "Oh, yeah? Well, say, let's go over and catch her." And somebody told her I was there. Now I have her record of "Spirit in the Dark," you know, but I swear to you, I never bothered to try to learn it, because Aretha was singin' it, and I figured after she got through with it, that was the end of it [laughter]. So, actually, she said come up and do somethin'. I said I don't know what to do. She said, "Well, we'll do 'spirit in the Dark.' " I said, "Well, I don't know 'Spirit in the Dark.' " If you listen to the record, you can tell I don't know it. The only thing I can say in the whole record is, "Do you feel it?" [Laughter.] That's all I could think of was do you feel it. And it just turned out that the silly record sold over a million records.
Where did you first meet Quincy Jones?
In Seattle. Quincy was wantin' to learn how to write, and he used to come over to my apartment and get me up early in the mornin', you know, and I'd show him how to voice and put the chord structure for a band together. He'll be the first cat to tell you, man, that in comin' up – he feels, I don't, but he feels he owes an awful lot to me for that. You know, I'm not a teacher, but if I find somebody who really wants to learn, and if they have the basic idea of what they want to learn, I will help them do it. I can't start a kid off from scratch, 'cause I don't have that kind of patience.
Why don't you write any more?
I just don't have the time . . . I'm sorry, but. . .
Did you used to have to find time to write?Well, I had, I didn't have to find. I had a lot of time, because I wasn't workin', and I didn't have the obligations then. Shit, I was starvin'. So what happens with a thing like that is you got plenty of time, so you utilize it. As Jerry can tell you, they used to send me many, many dubs, and I'd play all of them, and if I didn't like anything, I'd say, "OK, well, I know I gotta do a session," so I'd sit down and write one. It's just that I was lucky at it. That's why. . . .
More than that.
[Laughter.] No, it's the truth.
Were there times back then when songs would just come to you anyway, whether you were looking for them or not?
Well, you know, you might hear somebody say something that would give you an idea.
And that doesn't happen anymore?
Well, it not so much doesn't happen, like I said, I don't have time to really – it's a question of how your life is, man, really. There are other things – I think it's a thing of a man spreadin' himself out too thin. Now, I love writing. But I am not a writer. I think it's fair for you to understand that. I am not a true writer. I wrote because maybe I heard an idea or somebody said something or I needed some material and I couldn't find none that suited me, so I sat down and wrote my own. It took weeks.
There are songs you've done – "Yesterday," "Take Me Home Country Roads" or "Look What They've Done to My Song Ma" – that people might be surprised to hear you sing. Where did you find these songs?
"Look What They Done" was a big record, and I heard it on the radio. "Country Roads" I heard on the radio, and I liked them – I liked the songs, not necessarily the way they were done.
Would that also be the case with "Yesterday"?
Right, exactly.
You could hear yourself singing it in your style immediately?
Yeah, right away. When I heard "Yesterday," I could hear myself singin' it the way the record came out. That's the way I judge a song. It's not always a question of whether a song is good or bad, it's a question of whether or not it's somethin' that I can handle, whether I can feel it in my own way. The song may be a marvelous song, like, say, for instance, "Stardust." I love that song, but I'll never record it, because I just can't hear myself into it. And I love the song, now.
Now, I take any song – if you wrote a song right now, you don't have to be a good pianist or good guitarist; as long as you can somehow give me the idea
. . . sometimes I get songs from people, and they try to sing them the way they think I would sing them. Bad mistake. Really bad. The main thing is that – just give me the song period. Because in the end, I'm going to do it the way I hear it. So it's better for the guy – just like the guys who for instance wrote a lot of songs that I do – years ago. But – take "Georgia." That wasn't written for me. The thing is write the song, and then if I like it, I'll find out what I want to do to it.
So it's the lyrics that you watch for that strike you in music.
First of all, I guess I lean toward the lyrics. I guess. If I had to be pinned down – I guess it would be like 51-49, there's not no big gap between the lyrics and the music. But if somebody said, Ray, you can't be even. You gotta pick one. I would probably go with the lyrics, because, you know, in lyrics, you can say the whole thing in two sentences. For instance, I'll just give you an example. I think that just the thought, I can't stop loving you – boom. I mean, that's said a lot for people. It's like Aretha singin' "What you want, baby? I got it." I mean, she can say doo doo too too – anything after that. Every woman in the world, whether she admits it or not, knows that she wants to say this to her man – What you want, baby. I got it. You understand me? That's – you see, it's little things like that that affect people. "What'd I Say" was – had a good rhythm pattern to it, but if you want to take any lyrics outta that, you know – during those days, it's like a guy says, "See the girl with the red dress." People can be synonymous with that, you know. "See the girl with the diamond ring. She knows how to shake that thing." It wasn't the diamond ring that got 'em.
Writing your songs, you were in the mainstream of blues and jazz, but in picking music, I find you doing kind of a schmaltzy song like "Breathless," comparing a person to a bird or an angel. You've always done Broadway showtunes along with blues, jazz, and country, so you've never allowed yourself to get categorized.
I heard somebody one time say that all black people got rhythm. Bullshit. Ain't no such thing as that. You cannot generalize with people. You can say if you want that maybe the bulk of the people go a certain way. You understand?
How would you explain the current success of black artists and music on the pop charts?
I'll tell you, I'm probably the worst person in the world to comment on that. Now, if you ask about my music, that's a different situation. But I think the kids that are coming up in the pop field, they are saying, "Look, we want to know about great artists, because it's a part of our culture." So they want to know about the people who play the blues, who play the gospel music, the real music that we have – which is not a putdown for your classical music, you know – it's just to say that our roots in music . . . America really only has, as far as I know, jazz. And whether jazz – where you're gonna find, really, the roots of jazz, you're gonna find it among the black people – the blues and the gospel music and everything else.
Was Tangerine Records part of the ABC deal? That you would have your own company?
Yeah, you could say that. First, when I started out with ABC as an artist, I also was a producer there, and when it was time for renewing my contract, I said, "Well, look, you'll have to come up with somethin' more to my liking." You know, it's not always a question of money, it's a question of the things that I want done, and so this was integrated in the contract.
Has Tangerine generally done well?We lost quite a bit of money in the beginning of it, and so naturally, when you open up shop, you lose money, you stay in the red for quite a while, and here lately we're not makin' a lot of money. We have gotten out of the red. So that is progress.
How many artists are there in the personal management firm? At one time, you were doing Billy Preston
.
We're just not managing anymore. I tried that, and I found in tryin' to manage cats, man, I can't stay with the hassling of it. So I just decided what I'd do, if anything, is get an artist, and I just sign him up and have him to record, and that's about it. Just let him do his own managing, get his own manager or whatever. It's too much of headache, and entertainers, I must say, we tend to be very difficult, and I just feel that it's a little more than I can handle.
Are you a really difficult person to work with?Well, that depends on how you look at it. I would say no, and then there are people who would say yes. You have to ask someone who works for me. I'm not a difficult person, I don't think, but I do insist that since we are pros, we oughtta act like it. I don't like to play. I love to have fun in my work, but if it's somethin' wrong, let's clean that up and get that right. Let's not play about that, 'cause it ain't funny when it's wrong. It's funny and beautiful and lovable and everything when it's right, you know what I mean. And I'll go along with you.
What is the "fine" system with the band?
We always gonna have that, man. I don't mean to have it, but unfortunately, you can't just fire a man all the time. My fine system works this way: I may fine a guy once. Never over twice. After that he's fired, period. Because I figure, if I gotta be finin' you, then we don't need each other. I don't need the fine money; I don't even want it. What I do, I take the fine and maybe later in the year give a party or somethin' for the musicians. So they really get it back.
It's not finin', it's a dock in pay. The union says that I can't fine a person, but I can dock them. For the man who's not getting the money, it's the same thing. $25 is $25 or $50 is $50.
Do you plan any further extension of Ray Charles Enterprises into other media? Say, buying a radio station?
No. I'll tell you, I have thought of lookin' around, and I haven't really proceeded, but I've sort of left a couple of small hints around. I'm not so much tryin' to make more money. I figure I pretty much got enough money to last me the rest of my life.
Leonard Feather once called you "a nervous, restless millionaire."
Well, I guess if you were talkin' about my, you know, with the assets and so forth – I guess if you wanted to you could call me a millionaire. I wouldn't say that. I figure I got everything it takes me to live. I got a home that's paid for, hell, and my kids are straight for the rest of their life. I got a little studio here and I can do my work in. Well, you know, I got a car, a couple of airplanes. What the hell more you want? Shit, you can sleep in but one bed at a time. And according to the law, you ain't supposed to have but one woman at a time or at least under the same conditions. [Laughter.] So I got everything I need.
Have you heard much about the new black movies?No, not really. I haven't really delved into it.
Some people have charged that movies like 'Super Fly' romanticize those things in the black culture that are romanticized by, say 'Godfather' or by cowboy movies.
Well, see, you gotta remember that you have the same thing going on in every culture. People may do it a little different, but see, as I read the Bible, I find things in there – all I gotta do is read the Bible and I read the news today. So people kill in every culture. People rape in every culture. People steal in every culture.
I would have to say that I think if I was gonna make a movie of that kind, I would do it in a different way and still say the same thing. I don't think it's so much of what you're saying, it's the way it was being said to make it seem like it's quite glamorous, and I don't think I would have went that far. You see, you should also show in that movie, yeah, you can go out and be a joke dealer, too, but you gotta remember you're gonna wind up killin' a few of your brothers, too, dealin' in that kinda stuff, and you're gonna wind up sendin' quite a few people to jail, and you're gonna wind up breakin' a lotta people's hearts, too, when you're doin' that. 'Cause believe me, man, there's nothin' worse than seein' a 12-year-old kid hooked. I mean, you know when you got coke, you got some heroin around. C'mon now.
Did your own involvement in drugs almost knock you out in music?
No. No. No. Nope. I can't say that.
Heights in music were reached during that stage?Exactly. So I mean, obviously, I couldn't say that, could I? You know, like I say, I ain't never gonna lie to you. It didn't knock me out or wasn't about to knock me out. My thing was that when my kids started growin' up – I remember one day my oldest son, he was one of the baseball players, they were havin' a little reception Thursday night and they were giving out these little trophies, and I was supposed to go, and what happened, I had a recordin' session that night. I was doing the sound track for The Cincinnati Kid, and I did the singin' on that, as you remember, but what I did, I went by there with him to this banquet, and I had to leave before the thing was over, and he cried. And that hurt me. I started thinkin', here's a child. It means so much to him for his father to be at this banquet. And I started thinkin' that suppose that somethin' happened, I get put in jail and somebody comes along and says, "Oh, your daddy's a jailbird." Remember now, he's gettin' up there in age, now. He's a little man, you know, and he gonna cry about that, I figure the next thing he'll do is haul up and knock hell out of 'em, and now he's gonna be in trouble all over me, when you break it down. That was my decision then. I said, look, I mean, that ain't it for me. And I said, OK, I've had enough – it's a risky business, it's a dangerous business, anybody knockin' on your door, you gotta double-check to see who it is.
When was this?
This was like in '64 or '5 or somethin', give or take, I don't know, back in there, anyhow.
That all came to a head right around '65.
That's right. Right then.
Are you still suspect today?Not that I know of. I think everybody knows that I'm deadly serious about that. I am sure, though, that maybe for the first four or five years, I was probably watched very closely. I have seen no evidence of this, don't misunderstand me.
See, I do a lot of travelin', you know, and I don't know what's in a hotel, they may have microphones, all kinda things, you know. And see, I'm always by myself, so I don't know what may be in a place, but I do know this, that I figure it doesn't matter as long as what I said is a fact and I meant it, and from that day to this one, I just felt that it was a bad scene, and really it just was a bad scene. I got involved in it – my situation is, I was young. I was about maybe 17, 18 years old or somethin' like that, and it always, you know, like, it was a thing where I wanted to be among the big fellas, like cats in the band, and these guys would always go and leave the kid "till we come back," you know. And I wanted to be a part, so I begged and pleaded until somebody said, "OK, man, goddamn it, come on all right." And they took me, and there I was, so they were doin' it and I wanted to belong, you know. I mean, this is really how it started, and once it started, there it was, you know. But I never got so involved in it to the point where I was out of my mind or didn't know what the hell I was doin', you know. Like, I heard of people havin' habits of $60 a day or $100 a day. I never had nothin' like that.
How much did you take per day?
Oh, I probably spent about $20. Never got above that.
And you started right with the hardest stuff.
No, I – before I led you put me into that bag, I wanna tell you somethin'. I disagree sorely with people who say that people who smoke pot leads them to usin' heroin. That's bullshit. That's crummy. That's just somebody don't know what they're talkin' about. 'Cause I know far too many people who have never done nothin' but tried to find some good reefer to smoke.
I remember the Man askin' me one time, he said, "Look, if you tell us who the guy was that sold you the stuff and maybe we'll make it easy for you." I said, "Well, I guess you won't make it easy for me, because I'm not gonna tell you nothin'. The man didn't make me buy nothin'. I bought it 'cause I wanted to, and that's not protecting anybody." I searched 'em out to buy it. So they wasn't solicitin' me. I was solicitin' them, seducin' them to sell it to me. It's just that I feel if the officials are going to blackmail me, then that don't make them no better than the people who are out there sellin' it.
What did you learn through the Viennese psychoanalyst?Who?
The psychoanalyst that you were supposed to have seen for a couple of years?
What did we talk about? Nothin'. Like, and he's not a psychoanalyst. I mean, what he was was a psychiatrist. He had no influence, say, as far as my doing or not doing anything. As a matter of fact, we didn't even get into – I told him one thing. I went there and said, "First of all we're gonna get one thing straight. You don't have to convince me not to do anything. I've already made up my mind, I ain't gonna do it, and it's finished. Fine. That's it." And so, when we saw each other we just talked in general about just what ever popped up, and hell, I think I probably talked to him more about his practice, what the hell he was doin' than about myself.
Was that year off hard for you?
I'm basically a lazy person. It's never hard for me to relax. But I do enjoy doin' things. The work I'm doin' is not work to me. It's fun. See, it's like a hobby that I'm gettin' paid for, and truly is part of my relaxation. This is really it for me.
Then why did you take a year off?
Well, I felt that I should do it just because I wanted to. Now, it was necessary, of course. I hired a psychiatrist so that when we went into court, I thought it might be beneficial. You tell as judge somethin' like a cat been usin' somethin' for 15 years, and he all of a sudden the man say he ain't gonna do it no more, and the cat gonna say, "Sure, come on now, let's get down to the facts." But if a psychiatrist says it, for some reason, at least the judge will kinda lean towards believin' the cat. So that was the whole purpose of the whole thing. Because, let's face it, man, if a guy doesn't want to stop doin' somethin', the judge, the psychiatrist, the jailer, ain't nobody gonna – the people stay in jail five years and come out on the street one day right back at it. So obviously jailin' ain't the answer to it, right? And it's a made-up mind of what you want to do with yourself. It's just like people who's smokin', and I felt about that as I think I would feel – let's say the doctor told you, hey, man, you smoke one more cigarette, you be dead in six months. Now if you can make yourself stop under those conditions, you can also make yourself stop if you see somethin' happenin' to your children or somethin' happenin' to your life or whatever. You just tell yourself, look, OK, that's a bad scene. I'm gonna quit. Just stop, you know. And once your mind is made up, that's it. That's all it is, man. I know I'm oversimplifying it, but I swear to you, this is the truth. I believe – I'll tell you somethin', now, I had the psychiatrist, and the man had a legal right to what you call trim me down a little less each day until I got down to nothin'. I didn't do that. OK? Now, that's somethin'. The doctor didn't believe this himself, that I have never in all my years, I've never seen nothin' like this in my life. They even tested me, may. They thought somebody must be slippin' me somethin'. Then, so they cut my visitation off, just to make sure, and I still was the same way, so they said, no, it can't be that. And then, another thing surprised him. Not only was I not doing anything, but they try to say do you want anything to help you sleep? You want any sleepin' pills? I said well, I ain't been takin' sleepin' pills. I don't figure I need to take 'em now. So and that was kind of a shocker. Because the hospital didn't believe it, the doctor didn't believe it. And man, they sent me in–they tested me two or three times, the usual testin' that they do on you. They sent me up here to I think it's MacLaine's Hospital in Boston, because this was ordered by the court. Like, they called me up one day and I'm workin' like hell, you know? Doin' my concerts, and they called me up one day and said, "Hey, we want you to go to MacLaine's Hospital and check in tomorrow." Now that meant one thing. If I was doin' it, they ain't no way in the world I could get it outta my system in a day. So they sent me up there. Not only did they send me there, but what they did, they waited until the weather got kinda cool. Now they know if you usin' any kinda drugs, you can't stand that cold. You just can't take it. So, man, they cut off the heat on me. Made me mad as hell. I went up and told the nurse I'm gonna sue the goddamn hospital if I catch cold. I know what y'all been doin'. I want some heat put back in my room. I mean, I'm not stupid. But, I'm literally freezin'. So you put the heat back in there. I'll be damned if I – once I leave here, I got to go back to work, and I refuse to have pneumonia behind some bull. I guess the woman must have said they can't be nothin' wrong with this man, after all the testin' we done and everything else, and all he can do is get mad, you know. So after a while they got to believe me, but it took an awful lot of doin', because it was unusual, quite unusual.
This came after your stay at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California?
Yeah, well, this was somethin' ordered by the court. This was part of my thing. They didn't tell me I couldn't work or nothin', they just said, look, any day we might call you, you know, and say this to you. What they did, they watched my schedule and knew I was workin', so they knew of a day when I wasn't workin'. They knew my schedule better than me, and all of a sudden they just bam – you just got to go, man. So they did test me a couple of times just to make sure. I didn't have a wind-down program. I just stopped, period. You hear about people who bite the sheets and eat up the pillow, and I didn't do none of that. So that worried people. They took all my clothes. They searched them. And they came in my room one day, they looked under the mattress, shit. I said "I don't know what the hell you all lookin' for, but they ain't any way in the world I can get anything. Nobody's comin' here, and I don't know where I could find it." And you know they watched me like a hawk.
You were once asked about the messages in your songs; or, rather, the lack of messages. Only last year, in fact, did you devote an album, 'Message from the People,' to anything but love songs. Was there a particular moment that you thought was right for such an album?
No, it was a matter of getting material I could handle. Believe it or not, it is very difficult to make an album like that, unless you're just tryin' to throw somethin' together. Remember I got to first feel the music, do somethin' with the song. And that's why in that album you have a song like "America." I wasn't tryin' to just say the country is all bad, because it ain't all bad. I love this country, man. And I wouldn't live in no place else. You understand. My family was born here. My great-grandparents were born here. I think I got as much roots in this country as anybody else. So I think when somethin's wrong, it's up to me to try to change it. I was sayin' that America is a beautiful country. It's just some of our policies that people don't dig. That's what "Hey Mister" is all about. How can you live in the richest country in the world – I can see havin' po' people, don't misunderstand me, you always gonna have the po'. But ain't no need to have no hungry people, because if you got a million dollars, and I ain't got say $30,000, I'm po' compared to you. But the difference is that in a country with so much, where we pay people not to grow food, ain't no reason for us to have hungry people.
When did you see Nixon?Yesterday.
How did that happen?He had heard about – somehow he found out about my work with sickle cell, you know, and that's what it is. Of course, his daughter is very interested in sickle cell, also . . . what's her name, Julie? Yeah. That's her name. Eisenhower? Yeah. Her. And evidently, somebody told her or he heard it some kinda way, you know. Anyway, we went over there yesterday mornin'. We were supposed to be there like 15 minutes, and we talked for 30 minutes.
Did you go into his office?Right in the office. I was quite honored. I mean, after all, he is the President of the United States. It's just–my thing is that I know that somebody – many times when you're workin' hard and you run into all kinds of difficult situations and irritations and things like that, and sometimes, you know, you feel that maybe nobody out there hears you, if you know what I mean. It's nice to know once in a while that somebody did.
Who did the talking?I think it was, believe it or not, 50-50. The conversation never lagged.
Did you feel inside that you wanted to say several things that you've been saying onstage; "Hey Mister"?Uh, no, because first place, I got the assurance before I went there – because the one thing I did not want – now, see, the way they explained it to me was that the President wanted to speak to me about sickle cell. Now, well, first it came off like this, well, the President would like to see you at the White House, you know. Well, the first thing come into my mind, well, you know, like, I'm not – first of all I'm not, I may not necessarily be a McGovernite, but on the other hand, I'm certainly not a Republican, either. So, therefore, I had no interest in politics whatsoever. But they said. "No, the President really wants to congratu – to thank you for your work in sickle cell, and that's really all he wants." Sure enough, we didn't get into politics. If I like a person who is a politician I will contribute to the cause, because they do have to have money. I'm not gonna go out and stomp for this person or that, but I do the same thing as I was doing for Martin Luther. I would go out and do concerts and help raise money, because as I told him, I'm never goin' to get in none of your picket lines. I'm not about to go an' march with you, you understand. And if I can help it, I ain't goin' to jail, you see? And that is not because I didn't want what they wanted. I figured, as I told him, everybody in this movement ought to have a function. They oughtta do what they can do best to support it. Well, I figure what I can do best is help raise money to buy the food for these people that are marchin', to help pay the attorneys' fees, because you got to have money to hire good lawyers to fight this. And you ain't gonna get the money marchin'.
Or if you're in jail.Right, plus I can't see how to at least duck if somebody throw somethin'.
You said onstage that "I Gotta Do Wrong" is "the story of my life," that "I gotta do wrong before they notice me."Well, I kind of think that what I meant was is that it seems that out of all the pleading that a people can do, all the crying out and all the conversations, you know, we've had than for years and years and years, and nothin' really happened. They said, well, those people are happy, and they're smiling and dancing, and so they must be cool. And nobody paid them the mind, until the people began to do wrong things. And, of course, what I was really saying is not that this was anything to be proud about. I was saying that it's something to be ashamed of, that you got to do wrong before a country as rich as we are – we're the richest country in the world. We got more money and we got more of everything. I don't care what any other country's got for the most part, we got that, and the chances are, nine times out of ten, we got more of it on top of it. And it's a shame that in order for our leaders to really pay us some attention, we gotta go and burn this down, and we gotta go and break into this, and we gotta go and picket this, and we gotta go and stand on this lawn – that's pitiful.
On the other hand, you take the Indian. What has he got? We found him here when we got here. But I guarantee you – well, hopefully this doesn't happen. This may be bad for me to say this, because I don't wanna start anything, but you know, the chances are the Indian's never gonna get a damn thing until he go out and scalp a few people, you understand, and do a little wrong. And then, he'll have the same questions we used to have. "Well, what's wrong with him? I can't understand. What's he asking for? What does he want?" Everybody knows what is needed or what is desired, what it is to help a man lead a decent life. Everybody who's in power – the leaders know this, but they're not – unfortunately, it doesn't seem like they want to do anything unless they're forced to it, unless they are made to feel shame about it. And when I sing this song – I gotta do wrong before people notice me – I'm not braggin' about that. I'm saying that that's a pity. It is, it's sad, man. So when the Indian goes out and he kills off or scalps a couple of people, and they go and burn down a couple of buildings, or whatever it is that's necessary, and when our officials begin to notice, then he'll get a little more, too. I feel bad to have to say that. Now he's gotta go and destroy somethin'. Get out the National Guard and the federal troops and everything else, you know, to quiet the people down. There's a man, I understand, who was asking for something that we wanted to throw away. This was Alcatraz or somethin'. We said we don't want the place out there no more, and the man said, "OK, this belongs to us anyway, let us have it." We wouldn't even give him that, somethin' we don't want, we wouldn't give it to 'im. That's sick. Sick! I'm gonna get mad now.
From The Archives Issue 126: January 18, 1973
Ray Charles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Ray Charles | ||
|---|---|---|
Ray Charles in 1990
|
||
| Background information | ||
| Birth name | Ray Charles Robinson | |
| Born | September 23, 1930 Albany, Georgia, U.S.[1] | |
| Origin | Greenville, Florida, U.S. | |
| Died | June 10, 2004 (aged 73) Beverly Hills, California, U.S. | |
| Genres | R&B, soul, blues, jump blues, piano blues, soul blues, gospel, country, jazz, vocal jazz, pop, rock and roll | |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer, songwriter, composer, arranger | |
| Instruments | Vocals, piano, keyboards | |
| Years active | 1947–2001 | |
| Labels | Atlantic, ABC, Warner Bros., Swing Time, Concord, Columbia, Flashback | |
| Associated acts | The Raelettes, USA for Africa, Billy Joel, Gladys Knight | |
| Website | www | |
Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), professionally known as Ray Charles, was an American singer, songwriter, musician and composer, who is sometimes referred to as "The Genius".[2][3]
He pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records.[4][5][6] He also contributed to the racial integration of country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his two Modern Sounds albums.[7][8][9] While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.[5]
Charles was blind from the age of seven. Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, and country artists of the day, including Art Tatum, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown and Louis Armstrong.[10] Charles' playing reflected influences from country blues, barrelhouse and stride piano styles. He had strong ties to Quincy Jones, who often cared for him and showed him the ropes of the "music club industry."
Frank Sinatra called him "the only true genius in show business", although Charles downplayed this notion.[11]
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Charles at number ten on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time",[2] and number two on their November 2008 list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".[12] Billy Joel observed: "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley".[13]
Contents
Life and career
Early years (1930–45)
Ray Charles statue in Greenville, Florida
Ray Charles Robinson was the son of Aretha (née William) Robinson,[14] a sharecropper, and Bailey Robinson, a railroad repair man, mechanic, and handyman.[15] When Charles was an infant, his family moved from his birthplace in Albany, Georgia back to his mother's hometown of Greenville, Florida.
Charles did not see much of his father growing up, and it is unclear
whether his mother and father were ever married. Charles was raised by
his biological mother Aretha, as well as his father’s first wife, a
woman named Mary Jane. Growing up, he referred to Aretha as "Mama", and
Mary Jane as "mother".[10] Aretha was a devout Christian, and the family attended the New Shiloh Baptist Church.[14]
In his early years, Charles showed a curiosity for mechanical
objects, and would often watch his neighbors working on their cars and
farm machinery. His musical curiosity was sparked at Mr. Wylie Pitman's
Red Wing Cafe, when Pitman played boogie woogie on an old upright piano;
Pitman subsequently taught Charles how to play piano himself. Charles
and his mother were always welcome at the Red Wing Cafe, and even lived
there when they were experiencing financial difficulties.[10]
Pitman would also care for Ray's brother George, to take the burden off
Aretha. George drowned in Aretha's laundry tub when he was four years
old, and Ray was five.[10][15] Charles started to lose his sight at the age of four[3] or five,[16] and was completely blind by the age of seven, apparently as a result of glaucoma.[17]
Broke, uneducated and still mourning the loss of Charles' brother
George, Aretha used her connections in the local community to find a
school that would accept blind African American students. Despite his
initial protest, Charles would attend school at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine from 1937 to 1945.[18]
Charles began to develop his musical talent at school,[17]
and was taught to play the classical piano music of Bach, Mozart and
Beethoven. His teacher Mrs. Lawrence taught him how to read music using
braille, a difficult process that requires learning the left hand
movements by reading braille with the right hand and learning the right
hand movements by reading braille with the left hand, and then
synthesizing the two parts. While Charles was happy to play the piano,
he was more interested in the jazz and blues music he heard on the
family radio than classical music.[18]
On Fridays, the South Campus Literary Society held assemblies where
Charles would play piano and sing popular songs. On Halloween and
Washington's birthday, the black Department of the school had socials
where Charles would play. It was here he established "RC Robinson and
the Shop Boys" and sang his own arrangement of "Jingle Bell Boogie".
During this time, he performed on WFOY radio in St. Augustine.[18]
Aretha died in the spring of 1945, when Charles was 14 years old. Her
death came as a shock to Ray, who would later consider the deaths of
his brother and mother to be "the two great tragedies" of his life.
Charles returned to school after the funeral, but was then expelled in
October for playing a prank on his teacher.[18]
Life in Florida, Los Angeles, Seattle and first hits (1945–52)
After leaving school, Charles moved to Jacksonville with a couple who were friends of his mother. He played the piano for bands at the Ritz Theatre in LaVilla
for over a year, earning $4 a night. He also joined the musicians’
union in the hope that it would help him get work. He befriended many
union members, but others were less kind to him because he would
monopolize the union hall’s piano, since he did not have one at home. He
started to build a reputation as a talented musician in Jacksonville,
but the jobs did not come fast enough for him to construct a strong
identity. He decided to leave Jacksonville and move to a bigger city
with more opportunities.[19]
At age 16, Charles moved to Orlando,
where he lived in borderline poverty and went without food for days. It
was an extremely difficult time for musicians to find work, as since World War II
had ended there were no “G.I. Joes” left to entertain. Charles
eventually started to write arrangements for a pop music band, and in
the summer of 1947 he unsuccessfully auditioned to play piano for Lucky Millinder and his sixteen-piece band.[18]
In 1947, Charles moved to Tampa, where he had two jobs: one as a pianist for Charlie Brantley's Honeydippers, a seven-piece band; and another as a member of a white country
band called The Florida Playboys (though there is no historical trace
of Charles' involvement in The Florida Playboys besides Charles' own
testimony). This is where he began his habit of always wearing
sunglasses, made by designer Billy Stickles. In his early career, he
modeled himself on Nat "King" Cole.
His first four recordings—"Wondering and Wondering", "Walking and
Talking", "Why Did You Go?" and "I Found My Baby There"—were supposedly
made in Tampa, although some discographies also claim he recorded them
in Miami in 1951, or Los Angeles in 1952.[18]
Charles had always played piano for other people, but he was keen to
have his own band. He decided to leave Florida for a large city, and,
considering Chicago and New York City too big, followed his friend
Gossie McKee to Seattle, Washington in March 1948, knowing that the biggest radio hits came from northern cities.[17][20] Here he met and befriended, under the tutelage of Robert Blackwell, a 15-year-old Quincy Jones.[21]
He started playing the one-to-five A.M. shift at the Rocking Chair
with his band McSon Trio, which featured McKee on guitar and Milton
Garrett on bass. Publicity photos of the trio are some of the earliest
recorded photographs of Ray Charles. In April 1949, Charles and his band
recorded "Confession Blues", which became his first national hit, soaring to the second spot on the Billboard R&B chart.[20] While still working at the Rocking Chair, he also arranged songs for other artists, including Cole Porter's "Ghost of a Chance" and Dizzy Gillespie's "Emanon".[19]
After the success of his first two singles, Charles moved to Los
Angeles in 1950, and spent the next few years touring with blues artist Lowell Fulson as his musical director.[3]
In 1950, his performance in a Miami hotel would impress Henry Stone,
who went on to record a Ray Charles Rockin' record (which never became
particular popular). During his stay in Miami, Charles was required to
stay in the segregated but thriving black community of Overtown. Stone later helped Jerry Wexler find Charles in St. Petersburg.[22]
After joining Swing Time Records,
he recorded two more R&B hits under the name "Ray Charles": "Baby,
Let Me Hold Your Hand" (1951), which reached number five; and "Kissa Me
Baby"(1952), which reached number eight. Swing Time folded the following
year, and Ahmet Ertegün signed him to Atlantic Records.[17]
Signing with Atlantic Records (1952–59)
 |
This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source. (April 2015) |
Charles' first recording session with Atlantic ("The Midnight
Hour"/"Roll With my Baby") took place in September 1952, although his
last Swingtime release ("Misery in my Heart"/"The Snow is Falling")
would not appear until February 1953. He began recording jump blues and boogie-woogie style recordings as well as slower blues ballads, where he continued to show the vocal influences of Nat "King" Cole and Charles Brown. "Mess Around" became Charles' first Atlantic hit in 1953; the following year he had hits with "It Should Have Been Me"
and "Don't You Know". He also recorded the songs "Midnight Hour" and
"Sinner's Prayer". Some elements of his own vocal style were evident in
"Sinner's Prayer", "Mess Around" and "Don't You Know".[citation needed]
Late in 1954, Charles recorded his own composition "I Got a Woman"; the song became Charles' first number-one R&B hit in 1955, bringing him to national prominence.[23]
"I Got a Woman" included a mixture of gospel, jazz and blues elements
that would later prove to be seminal in the development of rock 'n' roll and soul music. He continued through to 1958 with records such as "This Little Girl of Mine", "Drown in My Own Tears", "Lonely Avenue", "A Fool For You" and "The Night Time (Is the Right Time)".[citation needed]
Parallel to his R&B career, Charles also recorded instrumental jazz albums such as 1957's The Great Ray Charles. During this time, Charles also worked with jazz vibraphonist Milt Jackson, releasing Soul Brothers in 1958 and Soul Meeting in 1961. By 1958, Charles was not only headlining black venues such as The Apollo Theater and The Uptown Theater, but also bigger venues such as The Newport Jazz Festival (where he would cut his first live album). In 1956, Charles recruited a young all-female singing group named the Cookies, and reshaped them as The Raelettes.
Up to this point, Charles had used his wife and other musicians to back
him on recordings such as "This Little Girl of Mine" and "Drown In My
Own Tears". The Raelettes' first recording session with Charles was on
the bluesy-gospel inflected "Leave My Woman Alone".[citation needed]
Crossover success (1959–67)
Charles in 1971. Photo: Heinrich Klaffs.
Charles reached the pinnacle of his success at Atlantic with the release of "What'd I Say",
a complex song that combined gospel, jazz, blues and Latin music, which
Charles would later claim he had composed spontaneously as he was
performing in clubs and dances with his small band. Despite some radio
stations banning the song because of its sexually suggestive lyrics, the
song became Charles' first ever crossover top ten pop record.[24] Later in 1959, he released his first country song (a cover of Hank Snow's "Movin' On"), as well as recording three more albums for the label: a jazz record (later released in 1961 as The Genius After Hours); a blues record (released in 1961 as The Genius Sings the Blues); and a traditional pop/big band record (The Genius of Ray Charles). The Genius of Ray Charles provided his first top 40 album entry, where it peaked at No. 17, and was later held as a landmark record in Charles' career.[citation needed]
Charles' Atlantic contract expired in the fall of 1959, with several
big labels offered him record deals; choosing not to renegotiate his
contract with Atlantic, Ray Charles signed with ABC-Paramount Records in November 1959.[25] He obtained a much more liberal contract than other artists had at the time, with ABC offering him a $50,000 annual advance, higher royalties than before and eventual ownership of his masters—a very valuable and lucrative deal at the time.[26]
During his Atlantic years, Charles had been heralded for his own
inventive compositions, but by the time of the release of the
instrumental jazz LP Genius + Soul = Jazz (1960) for ABC's subsidiary label Impulse!, he had virtually given up on writing original material, instead following his eclectic impulses as an interpreter.[24]
With "Georgia on My Mind", his first hit single for ABC-Paramount in 1960, Charles received national acclaim and a Grammy Award. Originally written by composers Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael, the song was Charles' first work with Sid Feller, who produced, arranged and conducted the recording.[24][27] Charles earned another Grammy for the follow-up "Hit the Road Jack", written by R&B singer Percy Mayfield.[28]
By late 1961, Charles had expanded his small road ensemble to a full-scale big band,
partly as a response to increasing royalties and touring fees, becoming
one of the few black artists to crossover into mainstream pop with such
a level of creative control.[24][29]
This success, however, came to a momentary halt during a concert tour
in November 1961, when a police search of Charles' hotel room in
Indianapolis, Indiana, led to the discovery of heroin in his medicine cabinet. The case was eventually dropped, as the search lacked a proper warrant by the police, and Charles soon returned to music.[29]
In the early 1960s, whilst on the way from Louisiana to Oklahoma
City, Charles faced a near-death experience when the pilot of his plane
lost visibility, as snow and his failure to use defroster caused the
windshield of the plane to become completely covered in ice. The pilot
made a few circles in the air before he was finally able to see through a
small part of the windshield and land the plane. Charles placed a
spiritual interpretation on the event, claiming that "something or
someone which instruments cannot detect" was responsible for creating
the small opening in the ice on the windshield which enabled the pilot
to land the plane safely.[10]
The 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, and its sequel Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vol. 2, helped to bring country into the musical mainstream. Charles' version of the Don Gibson song I Can't Stop Loving You
topped the Pop chart for five weeks, stayed at No. 1 in the R&B
chart for ten weeks, and also gave him his only number one record in the
UK. In 1962, he founded his own record label, Tangerine Records, which ABC-Paramount promoted and distributed.[30][31] He had major pop hits in 1963 with "Busted" (US No. 4) and Take These Chains From My Heart (US No. 8).[citation needed]
In 1965, Charles' career was halted once more after being arrested
for a third time for heroin use. He agreed to go to rehab to avoid jail time, and eventually kicked his habit at a clinic in Los Angeles. After spending a year on parole, Charles reappeared in the charts in 1966 with a series of hits composed with the fledgling team of Ashford & Simpson,
including the dance number "I Don't Need No Doctor", and "Let's Go Get
Stoned", which became his first No. 1 R&B hit in several years. His
cover of country artist Buck Owens' "Crying Time"
reached No. 6 on the pop chart and helped Charles win a Grammy Award
the following March. In 1967, he had a top twenty hit with another
ballad, "Here We Go Again".[32]
Commercial decline (1967–81)
Ray Charles in 1968
1972 meeting of President Nixon and Ray Charles taken by Oliver F. Atkins
Charles' renewed chart success, however, proved to be short lived,
and by the late 1960s his music was rarely played on radio stations. The
rise of psychedelic rock
and harder forms of rock and R&B music had reduced Charles' radio
appeal, as did his choosing to record pop standards and covers of
contemporary rock and soul hits, since his earnings from owning his own
masters had taken away the motivation to write new material. Charles
nonetheless continued to have an active recording career, although most
of his recordings between 1968 and 1973 evoked strong reactions: people
either liked them a lot, or strongly disliked them.[17] His 1972 album, A Message from the People, included his unique gospel-influenced version of "America the Beautiful", as well as a number of protest songs about poverty and civil rights. Charles was often criticized for his version of "America the Beautiful"
because it was very drastically changed from the songs original
version. The common argument against this is that the words are
scattered and changed, but the music in the background remains beautiful
and untouched. Many people believed that this was a perfect
representation of the freedom Americans are given, free to do what they
want, so long as they follow the laws (music) that we are given.[33]
In 1974, Charles left ABC Records and recorded several albums on his
own Crossover Records label. A 1975 recording of Stevie Wonder's hit "Living for the City"
later helped Charles win another Grammy. In 1977, he reunited with
Ahmet Ertegün and re-signed to Atlantic Records, where he recorded the
album True to Life,
remaining with his old label until 1980. However, the label had now
begun to focus on rock acts, and some of their prominent soul artists
such as Aretha Franklin were starting to be neglected. In November 1977 he appeared as the host of NBC's Saturday Night Live.[34] In April 1979, Charles' version of "Georgia On My Mind" was proclaimed the state song of Georgia, and an emotional Charles performed the song on the floor of the state legislature.[17] Although he had notably supported the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr.
in the 1960s, in 1981 Charles was criticized for performing at South
Africa's Sun City resort during an international boycott of its apartheid policy.[17]
Later years (1983–2004)
Ray Charles (North Sea Jazz Festival 1983)
Charles with President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan in 1984
One of his last public performances, at the 2003 Montreal International Jazz Festival
In 1983, Charles signed a contract with Columbia Records. He recorded a string of country albums, as well as having single hits with duet singers such as George Jones, Chet Atkins, B.J. Thomas, Mickey Gilley, Hank Williams, Jr., Dee Dee Bridgewater ("Precious Thing") and lifelong friend Willie Nelson, with whom he recorded the No. 1 country duet "Seven Spanish Angels".[citation needed]
Prior to the release of his first Warner release, Would You Believe, Charles made a return to the R&B charts with a cover of The Brothers Johnson's "I'll Be Good to You", a duet with his lifelong friend Quincy Jones and singer Chaka Khan
which hit number-one on the R&B charts in 1990 and won Charles and
Khan a Grammy for their dual work. Prior to this, Charles returned to
the pop charts in another duet, with singer Billy Joel on the song "Baby Grand". In 1989, he recorded a cover of the Southern All Stars' "Itoshi no Ellie" for a Japanese TV advert for the Suntory brand, releasing it in Japan as "Ellie My Love" where it reached No. 3 on its Oricon chart.[35]
Charles' 1993 album, My World, became his first album in some time to reach the Billboard 200, whilst his cover of Leon Russell's "A Song for You"
would give him a hit on the adult contemporary chart as well as his
twelfth and final Grammy. By the beginning of the 1980s, Charles was
reaching younger audiences with appearances in various films and TV
shows. In 1980, he appeared in the film The Blues Brothers. Charles' version of "Night Time is the Right Time" was played during the popular Cosby Show
episode "Happy Anniversary", although he never appeared on the show in
person. In 1985, he appeared alongside a slew of other popular musicians
in the USA for Africa charity recording "We Are the World".
Charles' popularity increased among younger audiences in 1991 after he
appeared in a series of Diet Pepsi commercials, where he popularized the
catchphrase "You Got the Right One, Baby".[citation needed]
In the late 1980s/early 1990s, he made appearances on the Super Dave Osbourne
television show, featuring in a series of vignettes where he was
somehow driving a car, often as Super Dave's chauffeur. During the sixth
season of Designing Women,
Charles himself sang "Georgia on My Mind" in place of the instrumental
cover version which had featured in the previous five seasons. He also
appeared in 4 episodes of the popular TV comedy The Nanny, playing Sammy in Seasons 4 & 5 during 1997–98. From 2001–02, Charles appeared in commercials for the New Jersey Lottery to promote its "For every dream, there's a jackpot" campaign.[citation needed]
Charles appeared at two separate Presidential inaugurations,
performing for Ronald Reagan's second inauguration in 1985, and for Bill
Clinton's first in 1993.[36]
On October 28, 2001, several weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, Charles appeared during Game 2 of the World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees
and performed "America the Beautiful". In 2003, Charles headlined the
White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, DC, attended by the
President, First Lady, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.[citation needed]
Also in 2003, Charles presented one of his greatest admirers, Van Morrison, with his award upon being inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the two sang Morrison's song "Crazy Love" (the performance appears on Morrison's 2007 album The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3).
In 2003, Charles performed "Georgia On My Mind" and "America the
Beautiful" at a televised annual electronic media journalist banquet
held in Washington, D.C. His final public appearance came on April 30,
2004, at the dedication of his music studio as a historic landmark in
Los Angeles.[17]
Personal life
Marriages and children
Ray Charles was married twice, and had twelve children with ten
different women. Charles' first child Evelyn was born in 1949 to his
significant other, Louise Flowers. Charles' first marriage was to Eileen
Williams Robinson and lasted from July 31, 1951 to 1952.
Charles' second marriage to Della Beatrice Howard Robinson (called
"B" by Charles) began on April 5, 1955, and lasted 12 or 13 years. Their
first child together, Ray Jr., was born in 1955. Charles was not in
town for the birth as he was playing a show in Texas; at first, he was
afraid to hold his son because he was so small, but he got over his fear
after a few months. The couple had two further children, David (1958)
and Robert (1960). During their marriage, Charles felt that his heroin
addiction took a toll on Della.[10]
Charles had a six-year-long affair with Margie Hendricks, one of the original Raelettes,
and in 1959 the pair had a son together, Charles Wayne. His affair with
Mae Mosely Lyles resulted in another daughter, Raenee, born in 1961. In
1963, Charles had a daughter, Sheila Jean Robinson, with Sandra Jean
Betts. In 1966, Charles' daughter Aretha was born to a woman who remains
unidentified, and another daughter, Alexandra, was also born to Chantal
Bertrand. Charles divorced from Della Howard in 1977, and later that
year Charles had a son, Vincent, with Arlette Kotchounian. A daughter,
Robyn, was born a year later to Gloria Moffett. Charles' youngest child,
son Ryan Corey den Bok, born in 1987 to Mary Anne den Bok. Charles'
long-term girlfriend and partner at the time of his death was Norma
Pinella.[citation needed]
Substance abuse and legal issues
Charles first tried drugs when he played in McSon Trio, and was eager
to try them as he thought they helped musicians create music and tap
into their creativity. He experimented first with marijuana, and later
became addicted to heroin, which he struggled with for sixteen years. He
was first arrested in the 1950s, when he and his bandmates were caught
backstage with loose marijuana and drug paraphernalia, including a burnt
spoon, syringe and needle. The arrest did not deter Charles' drug use,
which only escalated as he became more successful and made more money.[20]
Charles was arrested again on a narcotics charge on November 14,
1961, whilst waiting in an Indiana hotel room before a performance. The
detectives seized heroin, marijuana and other items. Charles, then 31,
stated that he had been a drug addict since the age of 16. The case was
dismissed because of the manner in which the evidence was obtained,[37]
but Charles's situation did not improve until a few years later.
Individuals such as Quincy Jones and Reverend Henry Griffin felt that
those around Charles were responsible for his drug use.[citation needed]
In 1964, Charles was arrested for possession of marijuana and heroin.[20] Following a self-imposed stay[37]
at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California, Charles received five
years' probation. Charles responded to the saga of his drug use and
reform with the songs "I Don't Need No Doctor", "Let's Go Get Stoned",
and the release of Crying Time, his first album since having kicked his heroin addiction in 1966.[38][39]
Other interests
Charles liked to play chess, using a special board with raised squares and holes for the pieces.[40] In a 1991 concert, he referred to Willie Nelson as "my chess partner".[41] In 2002, he played and lost to American Grandmaster and former U.S. Champion Larry Evans.[42]
In 2001, Morehouse College
honored Charles with the Candle Award for Lifetime Achievement in Arts
and Entertainment, and later that same year granted him an honorary
doctor of humane letters. Charles and his longtime business manager, Joe
Adams, also gave a gift of $1 million to Morehouse, where Charles had
approved plans for the building of the Ray Charles Performing Arts
Center.[43]
Death
In 2003, Charles had successful hip replacement surgery and was originally planning to go back on tour, until he began suffering from other ailments. Charles died at his home in Beverly Hills, California on June 10, 2004, surrounded by family and friends,[44][45] as a result of acute liver disease.[3]
He was 73 years old. His funeral took place on June 18, 2004, at the
First AME Church in Los Angeles, with musical peers such as Little Richard in attendance.[46] B.B. King, Glen Campbell, Stevie Wonder and Wynton Marsalis each played a tribute at Charles' funeral.[47] Charles was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery.
Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Blvd
His final album, Genius Loves Company, was released two months after his death, and consists of duets with various admirers and contemporaries: B.B. King, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, James Taylor, Gladys Knight, Michael McDonald, Natalie Cole, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Norah Jones and Johnny Mathis. The album won eight Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Vocal Album, Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Here We Go Again" with Norah Jones, and Best Gospel Performance for "Heaven Help Us All" with Gladys Knight; he also received nods for his duets with Elton John and B.B. King. The album included a version of Harold Arlen's "Over the Rainbow" sung as a duet with Johnny Mathis, which was played at Charles' memorial service.[47]
Two more posthumous albums were released: Genius & Friends (2005), a selection of duets recorded from 1997 to 2004 with artists of Charles' choice, including "Big Bad Love" with Diana Ross; and Ray Sings, Basie Swings
(2006), which combined archive Ray Charles live vocal performances from
the mid-1970s recorded from the concert mixing board with new
instrumental tracks specially recorded by the contemporary Count Basie Orchestra and other musicians, to create a "fantasy concert" recording.[citation needed]
Legacy
Influence on music industry
Statue by Andy Davis in Ray Charles Plaza in Albany, Georgia
Charles possessed one of the most recognizable voices in American music. In the words of musicologist Henry Pleasants (music critic):
Sinatra, and Bing Crosby before him, had been masters of words. Ray Charles is a master of sounds. His records disclose an extraordinary assortment of slurs, glides, turns, shrieks, wails, breaks, shouts, screams and hollers, all wonderfully controlled, disciplined by inspired musicianship, and harnessed to ingenious subtleties of harmony, dynamics and rhythm... It is either the singing of a man whose vocabulary is inadequate to express what is in his heart and mind or of one whose feelings are too intense for satisfactory verbal or conventionally melodic articulation. He can’t tell it to you. He can’t even sing it to you. He has to cry out to you, or shout to you, in tones eloquent of despair—or exaltation. The voice alone, with little assistance from the text or the notated music, conveys the message.[48]
His style and success in the genres of rhythm and blues and jazz had
an influence on a number of highly successful artists, including Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison and Billy Joel. According to Joe Levy, a music editor for Rolling Stone,
"The hit records he made for Atlantic in the mid-50's mapped out
everything that would happen to rock 'n' roll and soul music in the
years that followed".[49] Charles was also an inspiration to former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters, who told the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet: "I was about 15. In the middle of the night with friends, we were listening to jazz. It was "Georgia on My Mind",
Ray Charles's version. Then I thought 'One day, if I make some people
feel only one twentieth of what I am feeling now, it will be quite
enough for me.'"[50]
Ray, a biopic portraying his life and career between 1930 and 1979, was released in October 2004, starring Jamie Foxx as Charles. Foxx won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Actor for the role. On December 7, 2007, the Ray Charles Plaza was opened in his hometown of Albany, Georgia, featuring a revolving, lighted bronze sculpture of Charles seated at a piano. The plaza's dedication was attended by his daughter Sheila Raye Charles.[citation needed]
Awards and honors
In 1979, Charles was one of the first musicians born in the state to be inducted into the Georgia State Music Hall of Fame.[51] Charles' version of "Georgia On My Mind" was also made the official state song for Georgia.[52]
In 1981 he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was one of the first inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural ceremony in 1986.[53] He also received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986.[54] In 1987, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1991, he was inducted to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, and was presented with the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement during the 1991 UCLA Spring Sing.[55]
In 1993, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.[56] In 1998 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize together with Ravi Shankar in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2004 he was inducted to the National Black Sports & Entertainment Hall of Fame.[57] The Grammy Awards of 2005 were dedicated to Charles.
In 2003, Charles was awarded an honorary degree by Dillard University,
and upon his death he endowed a professorship of African-American
culinary history at the school, the first such chair in the nation.[58] A $20 million performing arts center at Morehouse College was named after Charles and was dedicated in September 2010.[59]
The United States Postal Service issued a forever stamp honoring Ray Charles as part of it Musical Icons series on September 23, 2013.[citation needed]
Contributions to civil rights movement
On March 15, 1961, shortly after the release of the hit song "Georgia on My Mind" (1960), Charles (who was born in Albany, Georgia) was scheduled to perform at a dance at Bell Auditorium in Augusta, Georgia, but cancelled the show after learning from students of Paine College
that the larger auditorium dance floor would be restricted to whites,
while blacks would be obligated to sit in the Music Hall balcony.
Charles left town immediately after letting the public know why he
wouldn't be performing, but the promoter went on to sue Charles for
breach of contract, and Charles was fined $757 in Fulton County Superior
Court in Atlanta on June 14, 1962. The following year, Charles did
perform at a desegregated Bell Auditorium concert together with his
backup group the Raelettes on October 23, 1963,[60][61][62] and was not banned from performing thereafter in Georgia as depicted in the 2004 film, Ray.[63] On December 7, 2007, Ray Charles Plaza was opened in Albany, Georgia, with a revolving, lighted bronze sculpture of Charles seated at a piano.[55]
The Ray Charles Foundation
Founded in 1986, the Ray Charles Foundation maintains the mission
statement of financially supporting institutions and organizations in
the research of hearing disorders.[64]
Originally known as "The Robinson Foundation for Hearing Disorders", it
was renamed in 2006, and has since provided financial donations to
numerous institutions involved in hearing loss research and education.[65]
Specifically, the purpose of the Foundation has been "to administer
funds for scientific, educational and charitable purposes; to encourage,
promote and educate, through grants to institutions and organizations,
as to the causes and cures for diseases and disabilities of the hearing
impaired and to assist organizations and institutions in their social
educational and academic advancement of programs for the youth, and
carry on other charitable and educational activities associated with
these goals as allowed by law".[66] The organization's philanthropic views stem from Charles' own views on giving, as the musician often contributed cochlear implant
donations to those who could not afford the procedure. Charles was
recorded as saying that the reason he has given so much more time and
money to the hearing impaired, rather than the visually impaired, was
that music saved his life, and he wouldn't know what to do if he
couldn't experience it.[citation needed]
Recipients of donations include Benedict College, Morehouse College and numerous other universities.[67] The foundation has previously taken action against donation recipients who do not use funds in accordance to its mission statement, such as the Albany State University which was made to return its $3 Million donation after not using its funds for over a decade.[68]
The foundation currently houses its executive offices at the historic
RPM International Building, originally the home of Ray Charles
Enterprises, Inc, and now also home to the Ray Charles Memorial Library
on the first floor, which was founded on September 23, 2010 (what would
have been Charles' 80th birthday). The library was founded to "provide
an avenue for young children to experience music and art in a way that
will inspire their creativity and imagination", and is not open to the
public without reservation, as the main goal is to educate mass groups
of underprivileged youth and provide art and history to those without
access to such documents.[69]
Discography
Main article: Ray Charles discography
- "I Got a Woman" (1954)
- Cover art for the single "Georgia on My Mind"
- "What'd I Say" (1959)
- "Georgia on My Mind" (1960)
- "Hit the Road Jack" (1961)
- "One Mint Julep" (1961)
- "Unchain My Heart" (1961)
- "I Can't Stop Loving You" (1962)
Filmography
- Swingin' Along (1961)
- Ballad in Blue (1964)
- The Big T.N.T. Show (1966) (documentary)
- The Blues Brothers (1980)
- Limit Up (1989)
- Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones (1990) (documentary)
- Love Affair (1994)
- Spy Hard (1996)
- The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave (2000)
- Blue's Big Musical Movie (2000)
Television
- Who's the Boss, episode "Hit the Road, Chad" (February 3, 1987) (himself)
- St. Elsewhere, episode "Jose, Can You See?" (February 4, 1987) (Arthur Tibbits)
- Moonlighting, episode "A Trip To The Moon" (1987) (himself)
- Wings, episode "A Decent Proposal" (May 12, 1994) (himself)
- The Nanny (1999) as Sammy
References
- "About the Library". Theraycharlesfoundation.org. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
Bibliography
- Charles, Ray and Ritz, David (2004). Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story (Third Da Capo Press ed.). Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81431-5.
- VH1 (see list of contributors) (2003). 100 Greatest Albums. edited by Jacob Hoye. Simon & Schuster, USA. p. 210. ISBN 0-7434-4876-6.
- Lydon, Michael (1998). Ray Charles: Man and Music. Riverhead Books. ISBN 1-57322-132-5.
External links
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Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ray Charles |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ray Charles. |
- Official website
- Ray Charles Library on imusic.am
- Ray Charles at Find A Grave
- Article from the St. Augustine Record noting Charles' being on WFOY
- Ray Charles – Daily Telegraph obituary
- Ray Charles discography at MusicBrainz
- Ray Charles at RollingStone
- Ray Charles at Songwriters Hall of Fame
- Ray Charles at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- Ray Charles at the Internet Movie Database
- Ray Charles at AllMusic
- Ray Charles discography at Discogs
- Ray Charles autobiography: The Early Years 1930–1960 at the Wayback Machine (archived October 12, 2007)
- I Can't Stop Loving You: Ray Charles and Country Music – Past Exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
- Ray Charles's oral history video excerpts at the National Visionary Leadership Project
- Ray Charles interviewed on the Pop Chronicles (1969)
- Appearances on C-SPAN
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