A 1954 single that put secular words to a gospel structure, often named as the first soul record (1954)
'I Got a Woman', reworked from the gospel song 'It Must Be Jesus'.
Popular music · Soul, funk & R&B
Ray Charles
1930–2004 · American
Soul, rhythm and blues, and country-pop crossover
Ray Charles, known as the Genius, welded gospel fervour to secular lyrics in the mid-1950s and is routinely credited with inventing soul music. Blind from the age of seven, he then broke every category open again in 1962 by recording an album of country songs with strings, and won seventeen Grammy Awards.
How to spot them
- ▸The nickname the Genius; dark glasses, a rocking motion at the piano, and a broad grin
- ▸Blind from about seven; he read and wrote music in braille
- ▸Gospel call-and-response with his backing singers, the Raelettes
- ▸Atlantic Records to 1959, then ABC-Paramount, where he won ownership of his master recordings
- ▸Refuses categories — R&B, country, jazz, big band and standards all in one career
Songs & albums
A 1959 single with a long wordless call-and-response coda, so long that it was split over two sides of the 45 (1959)
'What'd I Say' — his first pop top ten and his last big Atlantic hit.
A 1960 Hoagy Carmichael song about a southern state, which that state adopted as its official song in 1979 (1960)
'Georgia on My Mind' — he sang it before the Georgia legislature when they made it the state song.
A 1961 Percy Mayfield number one in which a woman orders the singer to leave and never come back (1961)
'Hit the Road Jack' — a Grammy winner, with the Raelettes answering every line.
A 1962 album of country songs given string arrangements, made against his label's advice, which became the year's best seller (1962)
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music — it made country music respectable to pop audiences.
A 1962 Don Gibson song from that album, a worldwide number one about hopeless devotion (1962)
'I Can't Stop Loving You' — four weeks at number one in America and two in Britain.
A 2004 duets album released two months after his death that won eight Grammy Awards (2004)
Genius Loves Company, including Album of the Year and a duet with Norah Jones.
Quick-fire facts
- •Born Ray Charles Robinson in Albany, Georgia, in 1930; he dropped his surname to avoid confusion with the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson
- •He lost his sight between the ages of five and seven, probably to glaucoma, and was schooled at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St Augustine
- •He witnessed his younger brother George drown in a washtub when he was about five
- •He refused to play a segregated dance in Augusta in 1961 and was barred from performing in Georgia; the state apologised in 1979
- •He won seventeen Grammy Awards and was in the first class of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees in 1986, inducted by Quincy Jones
- •He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986 and the National Medal of Arts in 1993
- •His 1984 duet with Willie Nelson, 'Seven Spanish Angels', topped the country chart
- •He appeared in The Blues Brothers (1980) as a music shop owner
- •He died of liver disease on 10 June 2004; Jamie Foxx won the Best Actor Oscar for playing him in Ray that year
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- Ray Charles — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
- Ray Charles and David Ritz — Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story