Krystal Veverka

Music Appreciation Paper 3

Ray Charles Robinson

Ray Charles Robinson was born in Albany, Georgia on September 23,

1930 to Bailey and Aretha Robinson, an underprivileged African-American

couple. Bailey, his father, having two other families, left Aretha to raise Ray and

her other children on her own when he was still a baby. She moved the family to

Greenville, Florida, where Ray grew up.

At the tender age of five, Ray contracted glaucoma and was left untreated,

resulting in a permanent loss of eyesight. Around the same time, he started

learning to play the piano. Two years later, he was sent to the St Augustine

School for the Deaf and the Blind, where he studied composition, learned to play

various musical instruments, and learned to write music in Braille.

At fifteen years of age, Ray Charles Robinson’s mother passed away,

leaving him an orphan. He dropped out of school and moved on to join a music

band, which took him traveling through northern and central Florida.

Upon turning eighteen, Ray moved to Seattle with a Jazz trio. His

inspirations included Charles Brown and Nat King Cole. His first contract was

with Swingtime Records, with whom he achieved his first hits, “Baby Let Me Hold

Your Hand” and “Kiss Me Baby.” A year later, he signed with Atlantic Records.

Ray Robinson was enamored with show business and a year later

decided to shift his career. It was at that time that he decided to drop his last

name in order to prevent confusion with Sugar Ray Robinson.

 Ray Charles became very popular by a chance- he took a huge risk by

merging Gospel music with never before heard of sexually explicit vocals. It was

a gamble that certainly took his career to a whole new level. His song “I’ve got a

Woman” took him to the top of the charts from the years 1955-1959.

Gospel music inspired him to write most of his songs during this time,

although most of his music was sophisticated blues. “Drown in my own tears” has

been considered by many as one of the greatest urban blues songs recorded

since 1937.

Around 1959, Ray Charles incorporated backup singers imitating a Gospel

choir and then started producing songs that are played in much mainstream

media today. “Georgia on My Mind,” and “Hit the Road Jack” are extremely

popular in today’s pop-culture.

It is believed that Charles has sold so many albums as singles because of

the unfamiliarity of the white population with Gospel and blues. They were

entranced by this unfamiliar yet acoustically stimulating music. He had an

extremely large following including Ralph Burns, Quincy Jones, and Frank

Sinatra himself.

Ray signed on with ABC/Paramount Records in 1959, allowing him to

become his own producer. This move gave him more flexibility, more publicity (as

Atlantic Records catered only to Rhythm and Blues music), and most importantly,

more royalties. It was the 1960’s and Ray Charles had begun to influence many

of the new musicians of the time, but his own career was on the decline.

Like so many artists, Ray Charles fell into heroin abuse. It remains unclear
at what point of his career this started, but statistically, Seattle has one of the

highest heroin-related deaths in America, so I’d wager that it was there he started

his substance abuse. I’d like to explore the reasons that he would chose heroin.

Because the Arts are so symbolic in nature, a substance such as heroin

may cause “Chemical Dreaming” where one may make a deeper connection to

such a symbolic place and be inspired in a way in which a non-chemically altered

musician would not. This is not to say that if one does drugs, that it would benefit

their career (as we know, there are many musicians with substance abuse

problems whose record sales are stagnant , i.e., Courtney Love), but if one

already possesses a talent, the drug may help them deepen their expression of

it. Rational and objective people realize that drug addictions are hazardous to

their families, their careers, and their health and that a temporary high will

ultimately destroy them in the long run.

Finally, in 1965, after almost a twenty year heroin addiction, Ray Charles

was checked into a rehab clinic in Los Angeles, followed by a year on parole in

order to avoid prison after being arrested for possession of heroin in 1965.

Apparently Ray Charles was one of the musicians whose works were

enhanced by the heroin, because after rehab his sales were declining. He was

still producing good music, but about half of his songs were not selling.

Ray Charles’ last performance was in 2003, “Georgia on My Mind” and

“America the Beautiful” in Washington D.C.. His very last public appearance was

on April 30, 2004 at his music studio in Los Angeles.

Ray Charles died on June 10, 2004 of liver disease and was buried at the
Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.

Important achievements acquired by Ray Charles are as follows:

Grammy Awards:

1960 Best Vocal Performance Single Record, Male, "Georgia On My Mind"

1960 Best Performance by a Pop Single Artist, "Georgia On My Mind"
1960 Best Rhythm & Blues Performance, "Let The Good Times Roll"
1960 Best Vocal Performance Album, Male, "The Genius Of Ray Charles"
1961 Best Rhythm and Blues Recording, "Hit The Road Jack"
1962 Best Rhythm and Blues Recording, "I Can't Stop Loving You"
1963 Best Rhythm and Blues Recording, "Busted"
1966 Best Rhythm and Blues Recording, "Crying Time"
1966 Best R&B Solo Vocal Performance, "Crying Time"
1975 Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male, "Living For The City"
1990 Best R&B Performance By a Duo or Group with Vocal, "I'll Be Good To You"
(with Chaka Khan)
1993 Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male, "A Song For You"
Georgia incorporated “Georgia on my Mind” as the State song.
1981 Ray Charles was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
1986 Included into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
1986 Received the Kennedy Center Honors
1991 Included in the Rhythm & Blues Foundation
2004 Included into Jazz Hall of Fame

The two articles were both fairly accurate and basically had the same

information. Wikipedia is, in my opinion, the most interesting yet unreliable

source of information on the internet, due to the fact that I could go and change

any information on the page. The references were not all cited and many of their

dates were inaccurate. There were spelling and grammatical errors throughout

most of the article, but I navigated my way through it.

I was unable to make it to the library to use The New Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians 2nd edition, 29 vols, however, I did pay the $29.95 in order

to use “Grove Music Online” from Oxford University which I found much better

written, but also much shorter.

 Bibliography

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_charles

Dave Marsh/R: “Ray Charles Robinson,” Grove Music Online ed. 2 L. Macy

(Accessed 13 April 2007), <http://www.grovemusic.com>

www.losangeles.about.com- Grammy Awards