En memorium, Ray Charles

madmallard · Post by **madmallard** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:44 pm

we lost another source of great, genre boundary breaking music in this man...

Iamshadowkiller · Post by **Iamshadowkiller** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:02 pm

oh man, I just heard about this too...these are not good times...

/end

madmallard · Post by **madmallard** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:08 pm

highlights from http://news.independent.co.uk/world/ame ... ory=530315

...in his last public appearance, his recording studio in Los Angeles was designated a historic landmark in a ceremony attended by the actor and jazz aficionado Clint Eastwood.

A composer, arranger, singer and player of instruments including the piano, organ, saxophone, clarinet and trumpet, Charles was boundlessly curious about musical forms and experimented with just about all of them. His greatest period, though, came in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when he secularised gospel music, made it acceptable for a black man to sing country and developed a soulful uptempo style - punctuated with his trademark moans and "oh yeahs" - that ushered in the Motown era.

One of his greatest admirers with a similarly eclectic taste, Van Morrison, ...

Off stage, Charles battled demons and, for 20 years, was a heroin user. But he kept his dark side away from the public. As he once said: "I've known times where I've felt terrible, but once I get to the stage and the band starts with the music, I don't know why but it's like you have pain and take an aspirin, and you don't feel it no more."

He was born Ray Charles Robinson - the surname was later dropped to avoid confusion with the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson - and raised in Georgia and Florida in the very worst period of racial segregation in the American South. His father was a mechanic and his mother did odd jobs, from laundry to stacking boards in a sawmill. "Even compared to other blacks," Charles wrote, "we were on the bottom of the ladder looking up. Nothing below us except the ground."

When he was five, his brother drowned in his mother's washtub. When he was six, he started to go blind for reasons that were never properly diagnosed. By 15, both his parents were dead and he was forced to fend for himself, half-starving as he toured Florida in search of music jobs.

lilgumba · Post by **lilgumba** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 11:44 pm

not many people are talking about him much. it sucks that his music is getting sold more after his death. then again people are obsessed with death so i shouldn't be surprized.

Jebadia · Post by **Jebadia** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 11:22 am

Indeed. I remember when I first saw Ray Charlse...in a Pepsi commercial (You got the right one babyyyy *uh huh!*) I thought he was cool as hell.

Jebadia · Post by **Jebadia** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 12:48 pm

and I've managed to misspell his name...

DDramone · Post by **DDramone** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:50 pm

this dude was a household name for me.

Harlock7876 · Post by **Harlock7876** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 10:58 pm

As I remarked to my mom about it:
"He probably never saw it coming."
Humor.....

Jebadia · Post by **Jebadia** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:26 pm

Harlock7876 wrote:As I remarked to my mom about it:
"He probably never saw it coming."
Humor.....

lol

DDramone · Post by **DDramone** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:04 am

i dont get it