Black History Month Music: Ray Charles

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Ouch. I made that first car payment. At least the second one won’t hurt so badly. (Ha.) Let’s celebrate with more music! Here’s someone that I hope everybody knew would be on the list. If you didn’t think he would be here, I need to talk to you. Ray Charles Brother Ray! Let me tell you, if you’ve never seen The Blues Brothers, there are two scenes in it that make the movie worth watching even if you don’t like the rest of it (but I just don’t see that happening). One of them is someone coming up later. The other is Ray Charles singing “Shake a Tail Feather.” Charles wasn’t born blind, but he went blind by age 7 from childhood glaucoma. He was educated at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine (the tram driver pointed it out to us when I went on the tram ride in St. Augustine a couple of years ago!). He left school after the death of his mother and moved to Seattle. On the west coast he found fame. Like many others, especially African-American performers, things came slowly, but steadily. By 1960 he had one of the richest record contracts in music and was winning Grammy awards for “Georgia on My Mind” and “Hit the Road, Jack.” But Ray Charles wasn’t a one-trick pony. He made a very bold move in 1962 by recording Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, an album that is hardly “country-sounding” but did tremendous things for the popularity of country music. Later in his career, Charles would record duets with Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., Mickey Gilley, and George Jones. It may surprise you that he’s in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Then again, the influence he had on country’s popularity explains it all. How else would Van Halen have quoted the title of a Don Gibson song unless Ray Charles had covered it??? Whether he was singing pop, R&B, jazz, country, or blues, Ray Charles was a legend and a trailblazer. Ray Charles Born Ray Charles Robinson, September 23, 1930, Albany, Georgia Died June 10, 2004, Los Angeles, California (liver failure) (age 73) HALLS OF FAME: Rock and Roll, 1986 (inaugural class); Country Music, 2022 Here’s Ray doing the Don Gibson classic “I Can’t Stop Loving You”: