Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians, Charles preferred being called "Brother Ray". He lost his vision as a child, possibly due to glaucoma, and consequently wore dark glasses.
Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining elements of blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel into his music during his time with Atlantic Records. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. With ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.
Charles's 1960s hit "Georgia on My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. His 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music became his first album to top the Billboard 200. Charles had multiple singles reach the Top 40 on various Billboard charts: 61 on the US R&B singles chart, 33 on the Hot 100 singles chart, and eight on the Hot Country singles charts.
Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but was also influenced by Art Tatum, Louis Jordan and Charles Brown. He had a lifelong friendship and occasional partnership with Quincy Jones. Frank Sinatra called Charles "the only true genius in show business", although Charles downplayed this notion. Billy Joel said, "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley."
For his musical contributions, Charles received the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, and the Polar Music Prize. He was one of the inaugural inductees at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. Charles has won 17 Grammy Awards (five posthumously), the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987, and 10 of his recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone ranked Charles No. 10 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and No. 2 on their list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". In 2023, in its revised list for the "200 Greatest Singers of All Time", Charles was replaced at the No. 2 position by Whitney Houston while taking the sixth spot. In 2022, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, as well as the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.
Ray Charles Robinson was born on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia. He was the son of Bailey Robinson, a laborer, and Aretha (or Reatha) Robinson (née Williams), a laundress, of Greenville, Florida. During Aretha's childhood, her mother died and her father could not keep her. Bailey, a man her father worked with, took her in. The Robinson family—Bailey, his wife Mary Jane, and his mother—informally adopted her, and Aretha took the surname Robinson. A few years later, Bailey raped her, and Aretha became pregnant. During the ensuing scandal, she left Greenville late in the summer of 1930 to be with family back in Albany. After Charles's birth, she and the infant returned to Greenville. Aretha and Bailey's wife, who had lost a son, then shared in Charles's upbringing. The father had left Greenville and married another woman elsewhere. By his first birthday, Charles had a brother, George.
In his early years, Charles showed an interest in mechanical objects and often watched his neighbors working on their cars and farm machinery. Charles's musical curiosity was sparked at Wylie Pitman's Red Wing Cafe, at age three, when Pitman played boogie woogie on an old upright piano; Pitman subsequently taught Charles how to play the piano. Charles and his mother were always welcome at the Red Wing Cafe and even lived there when they were in financial distress. Pitman also cared for Ray's younger brother George, to take some of the burden off their mother. George accidentally drowned in his mother's laundry tub at age four.
Charles started to lose his sight at age four or five, and was blind by age seven, likely as a result of glaucoma. Because of his blindness, Charles donned his famous sunglasses. Destitute, uneducated, and mourning the loss of her younger son, Aretha Robinson used her connections in the local community to find a school that would accept a blind African-American pupil. Despite his initial protest, Charles attended school at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine from 1937 to 1945 and learned to play a variety of instruments, including the piano, alto saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, and organ. He focused primarily on the piano.
Charles further developed his musical talent at school, taking classical piano lessons and learning the music of composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Sibelius. Charles's music teacher, Mrs. Lawrence, taught him to read and write music using Braille, a difficult process that requires learning the left hand movements by reading braille with the right hand and learning the right hand movements by reading braille with the left hand, then combining the two parts.
Charles's mother died in the spring of 1945, when he was 14. Her death came as a shock to Charles, and he later said the deaths of his brother and mother were "the two great tragedies" of his life. Charles decided not to return to school after the funeral.
1945–1952: Florida, Los Angeles, and Seattle
After leaving school, Charles moved to Jacksonville to live with Charles Wayne Powell, who had been friends with his late mother. He played the piano for bands at the Ritz Theatre in LaVilla for over a year, earning $4 a night (US$48, in 2025 value). He joined Local 632 of the American Federation of Musicians, in the hope that it would help him get work, and was able to use the union hall's piano to practice, since he did not have one at home; he learned piano licks from copying the other players there. He started to build a reputation as a talented musician in Jacksonville, but the jobs did not come fast enough for him to construct a strong identity, so, at age 16, he moved to Orlando, where he lived in borderline poverty and went without food for days. Charles eventually started to write arrangements for a pop music band, and in the summer of 1947, he unsuccessfully auditioned to play piano for Lucky Millinder and his sixteen-piece band.
In 1947, Charles moved to Tampa, where he held two jobs, including one as a pianist for Charles Brantley's Honey Dippers. In his early career, Charles modeled himself on Nat King Cole. His first four recordings—"Wondering and Wondering", "Walking and Talking", "Why Did You Go?" and "I Found My Baby There"—were allegedly done in Tampa, although some discographies claim he recorded them in Miami in 1951 or else Los Angeles in 1952.
Charles had always played piano for other people, but he was keen to have his own band. He decided to leave Florida for a large city, and, considering Chicago and New York City too big, followed his friend Gosady "Garcia" McGee to Seattle, Washington, in March 1948, knowing that the biggest radio hits came from northern cities. There, under the tutelage of record producer Robert Blackwell, he met and befriended the 15-year-old Quincy Jones.
With Charles on piano, McKee on guitar, and Milton Garred on bass, The McSon Trio (named for McKee and Robinson) started playing the 1–5 A.M. shift at the Rocking Chair. Publicity photos of this trio are some of the earliest known photographs of Charles. In April 1949, he and his band recorded "Confession Blues", which became his first national hit, soaring to the second spot on the Billboard R&B chart. While still working at the Rocking Chair, Charles also arranged songs for other artists, including Cole Porter's "Ghost of a Chance" and Dizzy Gillespie's "Emanon". After the success of his first two singles, Charles moved to Los Angeles in 1950 and spent the next few years touring with the blues musician Lowell Fulson as Fulson's musical director.