Ray Charles - ’The Genius’ Leaves an Indelible Mark

’The Genius’ Put His Stamp on Music, From Soul to Country

By Richard Cromelin and Randy Lewis, Times Staff Writers

http://www.latimes.com/la-me-charles11jun11,1,3070688.story

Ray Charles, the musical innovator whose bold,
effortless fusions left an indelible mark on the rock,
soul and country music of the past half-century, died
Thursday at his Beverly Hills home. He was 73.

The cause of death was complications of liver disease,
according to his publicist, Jerry Digney.

The hard-working musician, blind since childhood, had
undergone successful hip-replacement surgery last fall,
canceling a concert tour for the first time in 53 years
on the road. Other ailments, including liver failure,
were diagnosed while he was recuperating from the
surgery and his health continued to deteriorate.

Still, he moved forward with his latest recording
project, working in the studio as recently as April on
an album of duets with Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Elton
John, Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones and others.

Charles’ last public appearance was on April 30, when
the city of Los Angeles designated the singer’s studios
on Washington Boulevard a historic landmark.

Charles’ recordings from the early 1950s, such as "I’ve
Got a Woman," combined gospel and rhythm and blues to
form one of the cornerstones of rock ’n’ roll and laid
the foundation for soul music. His landmark 1962 album,
"Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music," took the
twang out of country music, bringing a sophistication
and ambition to the genre that opened the door to its
modernization.

His relatively modest showing on the pop charts - just
12 singles in the Top 10 — fails to reflect his
profound influence and stature in the music world. He
was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1986, part of the institution’s inaugural 10-member
class that also included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry,
James Brown and Jerry Lee Lewis. He received the
Recording Academy’s lifetime achievement award at the
1987 Grammys.

"How do you deconstruct genius?" Jerry Wexler, the noted
producer and record executive who worked on many of
Charles’ recordings for Atlantic Records, said Thursday.
"He took the Lord’s music and the devil’s words and make
this amalgam they call soul music.

"And as a performer, there is no one you can compare him
to, and the distance to whoever is second is
immeasurable. That’s the way it is with Bob Dylan and
Aretha Franklin in their areas. No one has ever
performed at the piano with as much charisma as Ray
Charles."

Few would argue that. Sitting at the keyboard in front
of his large band and his three shimmying backup
singers, the Raelettes, Charles was a commanding stage
figure. His trademark dark glasses added to his
mystique, and he would lean back from the piano and sway
to the music. The finishing touch was one of the most
identifiable, emotive voices in pop music - a gravelly,
elastic instrument that could be tearfully plaintive one
moment and slyly salacious the next.

"Everyone felt like they knew Ray Charles and in a way
they did, because he was embodied by his music," said
Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic Records’ co-founder. "We were on
tour and playing these tobacco barns in the South and
the crowd would just be packed in to see him. The women
would come up to the bandstand and yell, ’Just let me
touch him once!’ It was like he had descended from
heaven, a beloved idol and an inspiration to so many of
us."

Ray Charles Robinson was born Sept. 23, 1930, in Albany,
Ga., and moved with his family as an infant to
Greenville, Fla. His childhood was marked by poverty and
tragedy - he witnessed his brother’s death when the
younger boy fell into a washtub and drowned, and Ray was
afflicted with glaucoma at 5. He had lost his sight by
the time he was 7.

Charles, who sang in a Baptist church choir as a
youngster and later discovered jazz though a friend’s
"Jazz at the Philharmonic" recordings, studied music at
the State School for Deaf and Blind Children in St.
Augustine, playing clarinet, piano and other instruments
and learning to read music by Braille.

On his own as a teenager - his father died when Charles
was 10 and his mother five years later - he began
playing in bands around Florida. He moved to Seattle in
1947 and formed a trio, playing Nat King Cole-style jazz
in area nightclubs.

It was there that Charles struck up a friendship with
another teenage musician, Quincy Jones. The two met,
according to the noted producer and musician, at "bebop
sessions in the city’s red light district."

"Ray’s the one who got me turned on to writing," Jones
said in a 1998 Times interview. "He’d sit there and tell
me, ’See, this is a dotted quarter note, and the
trumpets play this and the trombones do that.’ I was 14
and he was 16. That was a long time ago."

Jones issued a statement Thursday saying, "There will
never be another musician who did as much to break down
the perceived walls of musical genres. Ray used to say
that if he had a dime, he would give me a nickel. Well,
I would give that nickel back to have him still be here
with us, but I know that heaven has become a much better
place with him in it."

Jones, who described Charles’ musicianship as
"unmatched," served as a composer or arranger on "The
Great Ray Charles" and "The Genius of Ray Charles," two
seminal Atlantic albums from the late 1950s that
established Charles’ jazz credentials. Charles sang a
duet with Chaka Khan on "I’ll Be Good to You," a track
from Jones’ 1989 pop album, "Back on the Block."

Charles’ group, the Maxin Trio, recorded its first R&B
hit, "Confession Blues," in Los Angeles in 1949.
Charles, who had dropped his last name to avoid
confusion with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, released a
single under his own name in 1951 for the Swing Time
label, and it would have far more impact than its No. 5
R&B chart showing would suggest.

"Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand" was Ertegun’s introduction
to Charles’ singing, and he called it "a staggering
experience." The label owner was so swept up by "that
thrilling, amazing and soulful voice" that he nearly
wore the record out. Soon after, Ertegun and Atlantic
purchased the singer’s contract, a move that would prove
to be a franchise-building coup for the label.

"He was the artist that put us on the map and there
would be no person more responsible for the success of
Atlantic Records than Ray Charles," Ertegun said
Thursday.

It would be a while before Charles made that mark, and
it was a stint with New Orleans blues musician Guitar
Slim that set Charles on his musical path. He arranged
and played piano on Slim’s million-selling single
"Things I Used to Do," and that record’s rough style
stayed with Charles, surfacing in his sensuous recording
"I’ve Got a Woman."

That song hit No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1955 and was
followed in the top spot by "A Fool for You" and "Drown
in My Own Tears." But it was his 1959 recording of
"What’d I Say" that marked his arrival at the forefront
of popular music. With its urgent, Latin-flavored rhythm
and sexy call-and-response bridge, it became his first
million-seller and his introduction to the Top 10 on the
pop charts.

"With the success of ’What’d I Say’ … Ray brought gospel
and R&B to a crossover audience and forever changed the
course of popular music," singer-guitarist Bonnie Raitt
said in a statement Thursday. "It’s impossible to
overestimate the impact his music has had on generations
of musicians around the world."

Though the record made him a star, Charles - whose
versatility and command earned him the sobriquet "the
Genius" - was too mercurial an artist to be easily
categorized.

"I never considered myself part of rock ’n’ roll," he
wrote in "Brother Ray," his 1978 autobiography. "My
stuff was more adult. It was more difficult for
teenagers to relate to; my stuff was filled with more
despair than anything you’d associate with rock ’n’
roll. Since I couldn’t see people dancing, I didn’t
write jitterbugs or twists. I wrote rhythms that moved
me. My style requires pure heart singing."

The catholic musical taste that would be the hallmark of
his career was evident early in his enthusiasm for jazz
(he once said the "genius" tag really belonged to his
keyboard hero, Art Tatum), his facility at singing
gospel music at church and his fondness for listening to
Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry radio show.

Charles made an unprecedented musical foray after
leaving Atlantic and signing with ABC-Paramount,
applying his soulful style to songs by Hank Williams,
Don Gibson, Eddy Arnold and other country songwriters on
"Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music."

"There’s an expansiveness about what he was able to
bring forth that changed the way people perceived
country music in general and in many profound ways from
that day forward," Dan Cooper, former content curator
for the County Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, said
Thursday. "For some audience members who weren’t as
tuned into country music, for someone of Ray Charles’
stature not only to sing those songs but to say overtly,
’These are my interpretations of country music,’ that
had a huge impact."

Charles returned to country music regularly over the
years and is part of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s
permanent exhibit in a section devoted to musicians who
brought new audiences to the genre.

"Modern Sounds" topped the album chart for 14 weeks and
the single "I Can’t Stop Loving You" was the biggest-
selling single of 1962. Other hits from the early ’60s
included "Georgia on My Mind," "Hit the Road Jack" and
"Busted."

Charles’ career was at a peak in the mid-’60s when he
was arrested in Boston for possession of heroin and
marijuana. He revealed that he’d been addicted to heroin
for 20 years, but he kicked the habit in 1965.

Charles’ music gradually moved into a more mainstream
mode as he continued to record and tour. He interpreted
songs by the Beatles, Randy Newman and Stevie Wonder as
well as Broadway tunes, wrote the theme for the TV
series "Three’s Company" and appeared in the movie "The
Blues Brothers."

Some feared his schedule was taking a toll on him.

"Take it easy?" he said in an interview with The Times
in 1988. "For what? Music is like a part of me. It’s not
something I do on the side. It’s like my bloodline, like
my breathing apparatus. I think the people that worry
about things like [aging] are pretty silly.

"If the day comes when I don’t got it no more, that’s
it. But think of all the time you would use up worrying
about what might happen. And if it does happen, what can
you do anyway? My voice right now is in the best shape
it has ever been. I can make it do anything I want to
right now. How long will that last? I’ll just enjoy it
while I can."

In recent months, he had met in the studio with King,
Nelson, John, Jones, Michael McDonald and others to
record his collection of duets, which is slated for
release in August.

"I lost one of my best friends and I will miss him a
lot," Nelson said Thursday.

Charles was an avid chess player who was known to set up
a game between sets at nightclubs or concert halls and
frequently engaged his peers in matches.

"Ray could kick my ass any day in a chess game," Nelson
said. "He gloated over that. Last month or so, we got
together and recorded ’It Was a Very Good Year,’ by
Frank Sinatra. It was great hanging out with him for a
day."

According to his publicist, Charles also had been
overseeing production of new releases for his own label,
Crossover Records. A feature film, "Unchain My Heart,
the Ray Charles Story," starring Jamie Foxx, completed
principal filming last year.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Thursday called Charles
"America’s music laureate, a national treasure."

"Ray was a consummate musician who saw the world through
the lens of music," Jackson added. "He is the soul of
music, taking gospel and weaving it together with R&B …
like a minister preaching in full music.

"Yes, Ray saw music through the whole door and not just
through a keyhole."

Charles and his wife, Della, divorced in 1977 after 20
years of marriage. His survivors include 12 children,
Evelyn, Ray Jr., David, Robert, Charles, Sheila, Rene,
Retha, Robin, Vincent, Alexandra and Corey; 20
grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Details for a planned public viewing and memorial
service are pending.

Times staff writers Geoff Boucher and Mike Boehm
contributed to this report.