50 Fun Facts About Ray Charles

Ray Charles was raised largely in Greenville, a small town in which state?

He was born across the state line in Albany, Georgia, in September 1930, and returned to Greenville with his mother as an infant.

What was Ray Charles's surname at birth, later dropped from his stage name?

Confusingly, his mother had also taken the surname Robinson after being informally adopted by his father's family.

Charles was completely blind by what age?

Glaucoma is the likely cause; the loss of sight is why he adopted his trademark dark glasses.

Charles attended a school for the deaf and blind in which city from 1937 to 1945?

There he learned piano, alto sax, clarinet, trumpet and organ, and read music in Braille.

Whose playing at the Red Wing Cafe first sparked three-year-old Ray Charles's interest in the piano?

Pitman went on to teach him piano, and Charles and his mother sometimes lived at the café when money ran out.

Which 1960 Charles recording was his first Hot 100 No. 1 and became a state song in 1979?

Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell wrote it in 1930; Charles performed it on the floor of the state legislature when it was adopted.

Which actor won the Best Actor Oscar for playing Charles in the 2004 biopic Ray?

The film covers Charles's life from the mid-1930s to 1979 and was released four months after his death.

Contemporaries called Ray Charles 'The Genius'; what did he prefer friends and musicians to call him?

Frank Sinatra called him 'the only true genius in show business', a label Charles played down.

Charles moved to Seattle in 1948 and befriended which 15-year-old future producer there?

Their friendship lasted a lifetime and they later shared a Grammy-winning R&B No. 1 with Chaka Khan in 1990.

What was the name of Charles's Seattle group that played the 1-to-5 a.m. shift at the Rocking Chair?

The name combined guitarist McKee's surname with Charles's own; 'Confession Blues' in 1949 became his first national hit.

Which singer did Charles model himself on in his early career?

Louis Jordan, Charles Brown and Art Tatum were also influences, but Cole was the primary one.

Atlantic Records bought Charles's contract from Swing Time in 1952 for how much?

Founder Ahmet Ertegun signed him after Swing Time folded; his first Atlantic session came that September.

Charles's 1954 hit 'I've Got a Woman' was later admitted to be based on which gospel song?

Bandleader Renald Richard wrote the lyrics, though Charles claimed the composition; it reached No. 2 on the R&B chart.

Charles hired a female vocal group called the Cookies and renamed them what?

Two members, Margie Hendrix and Mae Mosley Lyles, each had a child with him.

Which 1959 single, banned by some stations as suggestive, was Charles's first top-ten pop hit?

He said he wrote it spontaneously on stage; it hit No. 6 pop and No. 1 R&B.

Charles left Atlantic in 1959 for ABC, which offered him a royalty rate of how much on every dollar?

Atlantic's founders told him to take the deal because they could not match it, and the two sides stayed friends.

Charles's ABC contract included a then-rare perk: eventual ownership of what?

The income it generated later sapped his motivation to write new material, and he became mostly a cover artist.

Who wrote 'Hit the Road Jack', which earned Charles a Grammy?

Mayfield was himself an R&B singer; Don Gibson and Buck Owens wrote other songs Charles covered.

Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, released in 1962, was the first Charles album to do what?

It helped bring country into the pop mainstream and spawned a sequel the same year.

Charles's cover of which Don Gibson song was his only UK No. 1 and a five-week US pop No. 1?

It also spent ten weeks at No. 1 on the R&B chart.

What was the name of the record label Charles founded in 1962?

ABC-Paramount promoted and distributed it; he later founded Crossover Records after leaving ABC in 1974.

Charles's 1961 Indianapolis drug case was dropped for what reason?

He was 31 and said he had been an addict since 16; his third arrest, at Boston's Logan Airport in 1964, finally led him to quit.

After his 1964 arrest, Charles quit heroin cold turkey at a hospital in which California city?

He then spent time at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts and received a five-year suspended sentence.

Charles's psychiatrist taught him which game as part of his therapy when he quit heroin?

He used a board with raised squares and holes for the pieces, and in 2002 lost a game to grandmaster Larry Evans.

Charles's 1966 hits 'I Don't Need No Doctor' and 'Let's Go Get Stoned' were co-written by which songwriting duo?

Jo Armstead also co-wrote them; 'Let's Go Get Stoned' was his first R&B No. 1 in years.

Charles cancelled a 1961 concert in Augusta, Georgia, after learning what?

The promoter sued and he was fined $757; he returned to play a desegregated show at the same auditorium in 1963.

Charles's gospel-tinged 'America the Beautiful' appeared on which 1972 album?

Barack Obama later called it 'the most patriotic piece of music ever performed'.

Charles appeared in which 1980 musical comedy film?

Three years earlier he had hosted Saturday Night Live.

Charles was criticised for performing in 1981 at Sun City, a resort in which country then under boycott?

He argued that his black and white fans would integrate while he was there.

'Seven Spanish Angels' was a country hit duet between Charles and which longtime friend?

His 1980s Columbia years produced a string of country albums and duets.

'Baby Grand', Charles's 1980s return to the pop charts, was a duet with which singer-songwriter?

Joel once said he thought Charles was more important than Elvis Presley.

Charles and Chaka Khan's 1990 R&B No. 1 'I'll Be Good to You' covered a song by which group?

It won Charles and Khan a Grammy and preceded his first Warner album, Would You Believe.

Charles's Japanese hit 'Ellie My Love' was recorded for a TV advert for which drinks company?

It was a cover of the Southern All Stars' 'Itoshi no Ellie' and reached No. 3 on the Oricon chart.

How many Grammy Awards did Charles win in his career, including five posthumous ones?

He was also one of the inaugural Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees in 1986.

Charles's final album, released two months after his death and winner of eight Grammys, was titled what?

It won Album and Record of the Year; 'Here We Go Again' with Norah Jones took Record of the Year.

Which duet from Charles's final album was played at his memorial service?

'Heaven Help Us All' won Best Gospel Performance the same year.

Charles died in June 2004 of complications from what?

He was 73 and died at home in Beverly Hills; B.B. King and Stevie Wonder played at his funeral.

Charles was among the inaugural inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In which year?

He received the Kennedy Center Honors the same year, and in 2022 was posthumously added to the Country Music Hall of Fame too.

Charles's foundation, founded in 1986, funds research into which kind of disorder?

It once made Albany State University return a $3 million gift that went unused for a decade.

How many children did Charles father, by nine different women?

At a 2002 family lunch he told them he was terminally ill and had put $500,000 in trust for each.

Charles shared the 1998 Polar Music Prize with which musician?

The prize is presented in Stockholm; Charles had received the National Medal of Arts five years earlier.

Ray Charles gave $2 million to which historically Black institution, later home to a performing arts centre in his name?

The $20 million Ray Charles Performing Arts Center opened there in 2010.

In which Georgia city was Ray Charles born in September 1930?

His mother had left Greenville, Florida, amid a scandal to be with family there, and returned to Greenville soon after his birth.

What is the most likely cause of the blindness that overtook Charles by age seven?

His sight began failing at four or five; the dark glasses he wore for the rest of his life followed.

How did Charles's younger brother George die when Ray was a small child?

Charles later called the deaths of his brother and his mother the two great tragedies of his life.

At school in St. Augustine, how did Charles learn to read and write music?

The method meant reading the left-hand part with the right hand and vice versa, then combining the two from memory.

What was Charles's first national hit, recorded in Seattle in April 1949?

It reached No. 2 on the Billboard R&B chart while he was still playing the late shift at the Rocking Chair.

Which singer called Charles 'the only true genius in show business'?

Charles downplayed the tag, and Billy Joel went further, arguing he was more important than Elvis Presley.

'Georgia on My Mind' was written in 1930 by Stuart Gorrell and which composer?

The 1960 recording was Charles's first collaboration with producer-arranger Sid Feller and won him two Grammys.

How much was Charles fined in 1962 for cancelling his segregated Augusta concert?

The promoter sued for breach of contract; the following year Charles played a desegregated Bell Auditorium.