Q 01/05

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

A) Florida

B) Georgia

C) Alabama

D) Mississippi

Answer · why

A) Florida

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

Q 02/05

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

A) Williams

B) Pitman

C) Robinson

D) Powell

Answer · why

C) Robinson

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

Q 03/05

Charles was completely blind by what age?

A) Seven

B) Ten

C) Twelve

D) Fourteen

Answer · why

A) Seven

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

Q 04/05

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

A) Tallahassee

B) Gainesville

C) Pensacola

D) St. Augustine

Answer · why

D) St. Augustine

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

Q 05/05

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

A) Lowell Fulson

B) Charles Brantley

C) Renald Richard

D) Wylie Pitman

Answer · why

D) Wylie Pitman

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