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Ray Charles (Robinson)

• often credited with "inventing" Soul music!!

Ray Charles' musical style

• gospel vocal style
• secular lyrics
• narrative quality of the blues and C&W
• big band arrangements (horns)
• driving rhythms
• improvisational opportunities

 

• raised in Greenville, FL, began playing the piano at 5 yrs of age ... contracted glaucoma when he was six
• studied composition (writing in Braille); learned to play alto sax, clarinet, trumpet, & organ
• both mother & father died before he turned 16, began working in dance bands; dropped his last name (Robinson) to avoid confusion with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson
• 1953 - moved to New Orleans and became pianist/arranger for Guitar Slim; went on to a highly successful solo career
  • recall the influence of New Orleans on the development of Fats Domino

Early Period - often ad-libbed secular lyrics to familiar gospel songs

I Got a Woman (1957)

It Must Be Jesus (1954)

(#2 R&B, 1957) - melody & chord changes "borrowed" from the gospel song "It Must Be Jesus," recorded by the Southern Tones in 1954
(video)

Dawson & Propes on "I Got a Woman"

 

What'd I Say (Atlantic Records & Ray Charles)

(#6, 1959)

blues, gospel, Latin mix!! (listen especially to the sexual peformance of the call-and-response at 3:09 to 3:21, then even more explicitly from 3:36 to 3:48 and 4:04 to 4:15)

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