Author Topic: REST IN PEACE: RAY CHARLES (Read 160 times)

ecrazy · « **on:** June 10, 2004, 07:33:24 PM »

By George Varga
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
6:54 p.m. June 10, 2004

Ray Charles, one of the greatest and most influential artists in American popular music, was long hailed as "the genius of soul" for his impassioned concerts and genre-leaping recordings.

It was an apt description for the eclectic singer, songwriter and band leader, who died of acute liver disease shortly before noon Thursday at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 73.

Charles never met a musical style he didn't master and indelibly make his own, be it pop, blues, soul, gospel, country, jazz, rock, funk or Broadway show tunes. His death leaves a void no other performer is likely to fill.

"He's the voice of a lifetime," said Aretha Franklin, who issued a statement Thursday while traveling to Chicago.

Those sentiments were seconded by Billy Joel, who cited Charles as a key influence for many rock and pop musicians.

"Ray Charles was a true American original who many artists tried to emulate, among them myself, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Steve Winwood and countless others," Joel said in a statement Thursday from New York.

Rocker Lou Reed, who was on an airplane when he learned of Charles' death, said he was brought to tears.

"Ray Charles changed my life forever, for the better, and I owe him a debt that cannot be paid," Reed said via e-mail.

The composer of such classic songs as "What'd I Say," "I Got a Woman," "Hallelujah, I Love Her So" and "Drown in My Tears," Charles' pioneering fusion of gospel music and blues – the sacred and the secular – in the mid-1950s helped lay the foundation for much of the rock and soul music that followed.

Charles, once described by Frank Sinatra as "the only giant in our business," was born Ray Charles Robinson on Sept. 23, 1930, in the tiny Georgia town of Albany. (He changed his name to distinguish himself from boxing champion "Sugar" Ray Robinson.) Music soon cast a spell over Charles, who lost his sight by age 7 and was an orphan at 15.

"As a kid at the age of 3, music was the only thing that would stop me from playing with my friends or my toys," Charles said in a 1985 San Diego Union interview. "Anything I heard, I tried to sing. If I liked it, I'd sing it, and that still holds true today."

He entered the St. Augustine School for the Blind in Greenville, Fla., where he began formally playing the piano, clarinet and alto saxophone. He never regarded himself as handicapped.

"It may be a decent word for some people," he said in a 2002 San Diego Union-Tribune interview in his Los Angeles office. "But in my case, the only way I'm 'handicapped,' if you want to use that word, is that I can't get in a car and put the keys in it and drive just down the street."

Reminded that he had done precisely that in the 1960s, Charles laughed.

"Yeah," he said. "But I don't recommend blind people doing stupid things like I have. Like my mom always told me – there is a way to do everything. You might not be able to do it like a sighted person, but you can find a way to still do what you need to do. And I gotta say, over my life ... I've found that to be true."

Charles began performing professionally when he was 15. He recorded his first single, 1949's "Confession Blues," four years later in Seattle, where he led his own band.

It was the start of a remarkable career in which he enchanted millions with such landmark albums as 1959's "The Genius of Ray Charles" and 1962's "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music." The latter was a million-selling crossover smash that yielded his definitive version of the song "I Can't Stop Loving You," which became a staple of his concerts. He scored 32 Top 40 singles on the national Billboard pop charts between 1957 and 1971.

Early in his career, Charles found he could make money emulating fellow singer-pianist Nat "King" Cole but soon realized the pitfalls of not charting his own artistic path.

"I started to thinking, 'Well, I love Nat Cole, but it ain't me,'" Charles recalled in his 2002 interview. "I wanted to find out what would happen if I do something like me, my way, the way I sing. And when I started to do that, that's when that gospel came out. Because that was in me. I wasn't thinking about trying to create a new style."

But create a new style he did, and Thursday Aretha Franklin saluted him for introducing "the world to secular soul singing."

Charles was able not only to make any style his own, but to make each performance of a song different – his soulful take on Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia On My Mind," for example – no matter how many times he'd performed it before. Gruff or aching one moment, poignant or playful the next, his voice was an instrument of remarkably expressive power, rising from a growl to a falsetto swoop and back again with seemingly effortless ease.

"Ray Charles has always been amazing," Norah Jones marveled in a 2002 Union-Tribune interview. "No matter what style he does, he's still Ray Charles."

He battled a heroin habit for nearly 20 years, but quit cold turkey after an airport drug bust in the mid-1960s. Despite undergoing a hip replacement last November, he was able to complete a new album earlier this year. Due out Aug. 31, "Genius Loves Company" (Concord Records) features him singing duets with B.B. King, Elton John and Bonnie Raitt, who Thursday credited Charles with having "forever changed the course of popular music."

Charles, who was divorced twice and single since 1952, is survived by 12 children, 20 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. A memorial service is planned for next week at First AME Church in Los Angeles, with burial afterward at Inglewood Cemetery.

Now_Im_Not_Banned · « **Reply #1 on:** June 10, 2004, 09:59:11 PM »

A-Trak · « **Reply #2 on:** June 10, 2004, 10:35:31 PM »

r.i.p

Sikotic™ · « **Reply #3 on:** June 10, 2004, 11:11:42 PM »

He was one of a kind. I kinda regret he died at the same time as Reagan, because it overshadows his death and legacy. My grandma got me into his stuff when I was little. He's in a better place now.

R.I.P.