Post by Journey2herpast on Oct 22, 2005 22:39:53 GMT -5
Ray Charles, who virtually invented soul music by infusing R&B with gospel fervor, was often called the Genius for his significant influence not only on urban music, but jazz and country as well.
Charles, 73, died Thursday at his Beverly Hills home surrounded by family and friends. His more-than-50-year career included dozens of hits and nearly non-stop touring, and gave him millions of other friends worldwide.
The singer, who suffered from acute liver disease, will be remembered by many of his musical peers at a memorial service in Los Angeles next Friday or Saturday, said spokesman Jerry Digney.
"I truly have no words to express the deep sadness I have today," close friend and frequent musical collaborator Quincy Jones said in a statement. "Ray Charles was my oldest friend, my brother in every sense of the word, and bigger than life. We first met when I was 14 years old and he was 16 in Seattle, and we had the blessing of God to realize all those boyhood dreams together.
"Ray used to always say that if he had a dime, he would give me a nickel. Well, I would give that nickel back to have him still here with us, but I know heaven has become a much better place with him in it."
Charles' death sparked an outpouring from all corners of the music industry.
"I lost one of my best friends and I will miss him a lot," Willie Nelson said in a statement. "Ray could kick I disagree any day in a chess game. He gloated over that."
Bruce Hornsby, another singer and pianist, recalled hearing Charles perform at a tribute to Elton John about a year ago. Charles looked feeble as he was walked to the electric piano, but backstage he enthralled such artists as Brian Wilson, Diana Krall, Norah Jones and John Mayer.
"When he started singing, that was it," Hornsby said. "Everyone else was playing for second."
Van Morrison, a longtime disciple, was informed of Charles' death while onstage at Hampton Court Palace in London. "I'm deeply shocked. I've lost a dear friend. Ray will be sadly missed." Then he sang I Can't Stop Loving You.
"There was just no one like Ray Charles ... it broke my heart today when I heard he had left us," said Tony Bennett.
Charles refused to be limited by genres or demographics, which allowed him to appeal to the broadest possible spectrum of fans. And while trends and movements — Motown, the British rock invasion, disco, rap — came and went over the years, he remained distinctly Ray Charles. With his warm, gravelly croon, he could mesmerize a crowd one moment with America the Beautiful or Georgia on My Mind and then come close to swaying himself right off his piano stool playing Hit the Road Jack.
He told USA TODAY seven years ago that he always stuck with what his mother, Aretha, told him: " 'Be yourself, son.' I like songs that tell me a story and that make me feel something. That way I can make other people feel what I feel."
A lasting legacy
He created a vast body of work that people felt, charting 85 singles, including such gems as I've Got a Woman, Drown in My Own Tears, One Mint Julep, I Can't Stop Loving You, Unchain My Heart, Crying Time and Let's Go Get Stoned.
"He always tells songwriters, 'Don't try to write a Ray Charles song,' " Jones once explained. " 'Just give me a good song, and I'll make it a Ray Charles song.' Everything that he touched is like that."
His final work, Genius Loves Company, a collection of duets with such admirers as Norah Jones, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Nelson and John, arrives in stores Aug. 31.
"It's impossible to overestimate the impact his music has had on generations of musicians around the world," said Raitt. "He's been a major influence on my music."
Added John, who may have been the last person to work with Charles: "The death of Ray Charles is an incredible loss to the world of music. He inspired so many people, and his music will live forever."
Atlanta's Morehouse College will unveil its Ray Charles Performing Arts Center in September. In late October, Universal plans to release the film biography Ray, directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Jamie Foxx.
Overcoming handicaps
Ray Charles Robinson's climb to musical icon did not get off to a promising start. Born dirt-poor in Albany, Ga., in 1930, he was raised in the tiny, segregated town of Greenville, Fla. When he was 5, he watched as his only sibling, 4-year-old George, drowned in a washtub. A year later, he started to go blind. At 7, he went to a school for the blind in St. Augustine, Fla., where he learned Braille and got formal musical training. Charles, who said he never used a cane or guide dog or begged for money, left school at 15 after his mother died.
He compensated for his blindness with acute hearing and a keen musical sensibility. Mable John, a member of his backing singers, The Raeletts, says Charles "taught me how to listen. He taught me to hear things I never heard before musically. He said most people hear with their eyes, but he taught me to see with my ears."
In 1947, he arrived in Seattle, where he formed the McSon Trio and first met Jones. He cut his first record, Confession Blues, with the group later that year. He patterned his style after Nat King Cole's and signed with Atlantic Records in 1952, but didn't break through until he heeded his mother's advice.
In 1954, when he did I Got a Woman, which blended secular lyrics with gospel stylings, soul music was born. At the height of his R&B popularity in 1962, he boldly released Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. And though ABC Records executives fretted, he had another big hit.
"He raised the profile of country music as a genre of American music in ways that have had an impact ever since," wrote Daniel Cooper in the liner notes for The Complete Country & Western Recordings 1959-1986. "There is no telling how many people, who perhaps never paid much attention to country music or even had professed to dislike it, listened anew based on the impact of having heard what Ray Charles was capable of doing with that music."
Charles also put out the seminal Genius + Soul = Jazz in 1961, and remained immensely popular through the '60s. He topped the R&B chart with Let's Go Get Stoned in 1966. He hit No. 1 on the country charts in 1985 with Seven Spanish Angels, a duet with Nelson, and topped R&B charts again in 1989 when he joined Chaka Khan and Quincy Jones on I'll Be Good to You.
Despite his physical handicaps and a lengthy addiction to heroin that ended only after a 1965 arrest in Boston, there was virtually nothing he did not accomplish in his career. The 12-time Grammy winner received countless awards and honorary college degrees. He played before kings, queens and presidents and was inducted into nine halls of fame, including the Rock and Roll Hall in 1986. Two years ago played the first music concert in the 2,000-year existence of the Roman Colosseum.
He received the President's Merit Award just before this year's Grammy Awards, and got the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame Award on March 6. Charles' last public appearance was alongside Clint Eastwood on April 30, when Los Angeles named the singer's studio a historic landmark.
Last summer, it was initially reported that Charles was suffering from acute hip discomfort. Doctors successfully replaced his hip, but other ailments were diagnosed, including the liver disease.
Charles, who is survived by 11 children, 20 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, always bristled at the idea of retirement. It hurt him to have to cancel shows because of his health.
In an interview two years ago, he said, "Music to me is just like breathing. I have to have it. It's part of me."