Ray Charles: 1930-2004

Charles passed away today at his Beverly Hills, Calif. home in the presence of family and friends. He was 73.

Born Ray Charles Robinson on Sept. 23, 1930, the first child of Aretha and Bailey Robinson, Ray Charles soon moved from Georgia to Florida. At age five, Charles endured a massive childhood trauma, seeing his little brother drown to death in a backyard washtub, and soon thereafter, Charles began to gradually lose his sight from glaucoma. At St. Augustine's School for the Blind, Charles learned to read Braille and to type, and soon he enrolled in music class, although for the clarinet, not the piano (the piano class was full). Early on, Charles realized the intrinsic differences in learning music as a young blind man. "With blind kids, as opposed to sighted kids, when you study music you must read the music with your fingers," Charles wrote on his website. "I'd read three or four bars of music with my fingers, and then play it. You can't just sit there and play as you're reading the music. You have to first learn the bars of music, practice it, and then play it and memorize it." After his mother passed away when he was 15, Charles played with bands around northern Florida before deciding to stake out his own claim as a solo artist by moving completely across the country to Seattle.

Discovered in Seattle, Charles migrated down the Pacific coast to L.A. where he recorded his first big hits including "Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand," "I Got A Woman," and "What'd I Say." Charles also leaves behind a legacy of wisdom and philanthropy outside the music world. Charles formed a friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the '60s and became a major contributor to the civil rights movement, both with his time and with his money. He also supported the State of Israel and Jewish causes worldwide. "If someone besides a black ever sings the real gut bucket blues, it'll be a Jew," Charles once said. "We both know what it's like to be someone else's footstool." This inherent open-mindedness perhaps contributed to another Ray Charles signature: his ability to shift genres just as easily as he shifted chords. His most prominent recordings certainly came in the soul and blues genres, but Charles could more than hold his own performing jazz, gospel, and even country, recording duets with the likes of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Hank Williams, Jr. along the way. He also had a major affinity for the Beatles, and his renditions of songs like "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yesterday" stand with dignity alongside the originals. Undoubtedly, music lovers will cherish every treasured nugget of Ray Charles' canon for generations to come. "Music is nothing separate from me," Charles once said. "It is me."