Ray Charles – Father of Soul

At three, Ray fell in love with music while spending time with his mother and younger brother, George, at Wylie Pitman's Red Wing Cafe watching Pitman play an old upright piano. Pitman later taught Ray to play the piano. His love of music didn't change the fact that his early life was harrowing. He witnessed the drowning death of George and, shortly thereafter, started losing his eyesight. Ray was completely blind by the age of seven, and his mother sent him to a state sponsored school, the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, in St. Augustine, Florida.

Charles learned more about music at school and played classical piano by Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven and, along with the piano, he learned to play the organ, sax, clarinet, and trumpet. He loved all kinds of music from country to blues. At school he also learned to read, write, and arrange music in Braille.

In 1945, at 14, Ray's mother died and he didn't return to school. Instead, he moved to Jacksonville to live with a friend of his mother's and started playing the piano for bands for $4 a night.

In 1948, Ray moved to Seattle, Washington because he knew all the biggest radio hits came from northern cities. There he met Quincy Jones, who was just 15 at the time.

Charles started becoming more popular when he played piano with the McSon Trio. In April 1949, the McSon Trio (accidentally listed as the Maxin Trio on the record label) recorded "Confession Blues", which became his first national hit, soaring to the second spot on the Billboard R&B chart. (source Wikipedia) During this time, he started arranging songs for other artists, including Cole Porter and Dizzy Gillespie. Charles moved to Los Angeles in 1950, and spent the next few years touring with the blues musician Lowell Fulson as his musical director.

Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company. (Source Wikipedia)

Charles's 1960 hit "Georgia On My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. His 1962 album Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music became his first album to top the Billboard 200. Charles had multiple singles reach the Top 40 on various Billboardcharts: 44 on the US R&B singles chart, 11 on the Hot 100 singles chart, 2 on the Hot Country singles charts. (Source Wikipedia)

Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by Louis Jordan and Charles Brown. He had a lifelong friendship and occasional partnership with Quincy Jones. Frank Sinatra called Ray Charles "the only true genius in show business," although Charles downplayed this notion. Billy Joel said, "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley".

For his musical contributions, Charles received the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, and the Polar Music Prize. He won 18 Grammy Awards, including 5 posthumously. Charles was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987, and 10 of his recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone ranked Charles No. 10 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and No. 2 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. (Source Wikipedia)

If you'd like to see more about Ray Charles, you should watch the movie about his life. Jamie Foxx did an incredible job portraying the Father of Soul.

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