Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was a singer, composer, and pianist from the United States. He is regarded as one of the most famous and influential singers in history and was often referred to as “The Genius” by his contemporaries. He favored the moniker “Brother Ray” among his friends and other artists. Charles was blinded as a child, possibly as a result of glaucoma.
Who is Ray Charles?
Ray Charles was born in Albany, Georgia on September 23, 1930. He was born in Greenville, Florida, to laborer Bailey Rob inson and laundress Aretha (or Reatha) Robinson (née Williams).
Aretha’s mother died while she was a child. Her father was unable to keep her. Bailey, a coworker of her father’s, took her in. Aretha was informally adopted by the Robinson family—Bailey, his wife Mary Jane, and his mother, and acquired the surname Robinson. Aretha fell pregnant by Bailey a few years later. She departed Greenville late in the summer of 1930 to be with family in Albany during the impending scandal.
She and the infant Charles returned to Greenville after the birth of their kid, Ray Charles. Charles was raised by Aretha and Bailey’s wife, who had lost a son. The father abandoned the family, moved away from Greenville, and married another lady. Charles had a brother, George, by his first birthday.
Charles was strongly attached to his mother and subsequently remembers her resilience, self-sufficiency, and pride as guiding lights in his life, despite her bad health and difficulty.
Charles had an early interest in mechanical devices and would frequently see his neighbors working on their cars and agricultural machines. At the age of three, he was piqued by Wylie Pitman’s Red Wing Cafe, where Pitman performed boogie woogie on an antique upright piano; Pitman later taught Charles how to play the piano. Charles and his mother were always welcomed at the Red Wing Cafe, and they even lived there when they were in financial trouble. Pitman would also look after Ray’s younger brother George, relieving their mother of some of the stress. When George was four years old, he drowned by accident in his mother’s laundry tub.
How old is Ray Charles?
Charles was 74 years old at the time of his death.
What is Ray Charles’s career?
Charles traveled to Jacksonville after graduating from high school to live with Charles Wayne Powell, a friend of his late mother. For nearly a year, he played the piano for bands at the Ritz Theatre in LaVilla, earning $4 each night (US$44 in 2022 value). He joined Local 632 of the American Federation of Musicians in the hopes of finding work, and was able to practice on the union hall’s piano because he didn’t have one at home; he acquired piano licks by emulating the other musicians there.
He began to establish a reputation as a skilled musician in Jacksonville, but jobs did not come quickly enough for him to establish a solid identity, so he traveled to Orlando at the age of 16, where he lived in poverty and went without food for days. It was difficult for musicians to get work; after WWII, there were no “G.I. Joes” to entertain. Charles eventually began writing arrangements for a pop music band, and in the summer of 1947, he auditioned unsuccessfully for Lucky Millinder and his sixteen-piece band.
Charles went to Tampa in 1947 and worked two jobs, one of which was as a pianist for Charles Brantley’s Honey Dippers.
Charles modeled himself after Nat King Cole in his early career. His first four recordings were: “Wondering and Wondering”, “Walking and Talking”, “Why Did You Go?” and “I Found My Baby There”—were purportedly made in Tampa, however, some discographies indicate they were made in Miami in 1951 or Los Angeles in 1952.
Charles had always played piano for others, but he yearned for his own band. He wanted to leave Florida for a major city, and after deciding that Chicago and New York City were too big, he moved to Seattle, Washington, with his buddy Gossie McKee in March 1948, knowing that the best radio hits come from northern cities. There, under the guidance of Robert Blackwell, he met and befriended the 15-year-old Quincy Jones.
What was Ray Charles’s net worth?
The late black American had a net worth of $75 Million as of the time of his death.
What is Ray Charles nationality and ethnicity?
He holds American nationality and belongs to mixed ethnic descent.
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
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Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
