Augustine from 1937 to 1945.Ĭharles began to develop his musical talent at school, and was taught to play the classical piano music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Despite his initial protest, Charles attended school at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Broke, uneducated and still mourning the loss of Charles' brother George, Aretha used her connections in the local community to find a school that would accept blind African-American students. Charles started to lose his sight at the age of four or five, and was completely blind by the age of seven, apparently as a result of glaucoma. George drowned in Aretha's laundry tub when he was four years old, and Ray was five. Pitman would also care for Ray's brother George, to take the burden off Aretha. Charles and his mother were always welcome at the Red Wing Cafe, and even lived there when they were experiencing financial difficulties. Wylie Pitman's Red Wing Cafe, at the age of three, when Pitman played boogie woogie on an old upright piano Pitman subsequently taught Charles how to play piano himself. In his early years, Charles showed a curiosity for mechanical objects, and would often watch his neighbors working on their cars and farm machinery. His father abandoned the family, left Greenville, and took another wife elsewhere. He was deeply devoted to his mother and later recalled her perseverance, self-sufficiency, and pride as guiding lights in his life. Mother and child then returned to Greenville, and Aretha and Mary Jane shared Ray Charles's upbringing. When she, scandalously, became pregnant by Bailey, she briefly left Greenville late in the summer of 1930 to be with relatives in Albany, Georgia for the baby's birth. The Robinson family had informally adopted Aretha, and she became known as Aretha Robinson. They lived in Greenville, Florida with Robinson's mother and his wife, Mary Jane Robinson. At the time she was a teenage orphan making a living as a sharecropper. Ray Charles Robinson was the son of Bailey Robinson, a laborer, and Aretha Williams. Billy Joel observed: "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley". In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Charles at number ten on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and number two on their November 2008 list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". Their friendship would last till the end.įrank Sinatra called him "the only true genius in show business", although Charles downplayed this notion. In the late forties he became friends with Quincy Jones, to whom he learned the ropes of arranging jazz music. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.Ĭharles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by country, jazz, blues, and rhythm and blues artists of the day, including Louis Jordan and Charles Brown. He also contributed to the integration of country and rhythm and blues and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. He pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining blues, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He was often referred to as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called "Brother Ray". Website Ray Charles Robinson (Septem– June 10, 2004), known professionally as Ray Charles, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and composer.Associated acts The Raelettes, USA for Africa, Billy Joel, Gladys Knight.LabelsĚtlantic, ABC, Warner Bros., Swing Time, Concord, Columbia, Flashback.Occupation(s) Musician, singer, songwriter, composer.R&B soul blues gospel country jazz pop rock and roll.
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