takes you back stage to see the Blues Foundation
give Ray Charles his Lifetime Achievement Award
at the House of Blues...
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Quincy Jones introduces Ray Charles |
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Quincy Jones introduces Ray Charles |
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Ray Charles is presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award |
Genius...It's a term overused in the extreme within the hyoperbole-laden music industry. But the braintrust
at Atlantic Records did not overstate the case one iota when they anointed Ray Charles with the enduring
mantle in 1959 with the enduring mantle in 1959. Charles personifies the exalted term in most righteous
fashion; if not for his groundbreaking hybrid of Blues and Gospel, the invention of Soul music might have
never taken place at all (or developed in some very different directions).
Born Ray Charles Robinson (he dropped the surname early to avoid confusion with boxing champ Sugar Ray
Robinson) in Albany, Georgia on September 23, 1930, he grew up in Greenville, Florida. Poverty was no
stranger to the household--shoes were considered a luxury-but there was always music to make life more
joyful. Local pianist Wylie Pitman was quick to take the lad under his wing, getting him started tinkling the
88s at the tender age of three.
John Melencamp introduces Willie |
Willie Nelson receives the B.B. King Blues Hero Awards ( him for more.) |
Diane Schuur |
Tragedy struck when Ray was five: he began to lose his sight. Two years later, he was
totally blind. But that didn't stop him from pursuing a musical direction. Sent away to a school
for the sightless in St. Augustine, Fl, he furthered his piano skills at the facility, falling in love with
the hip pianistics of Nat King Cole and Art Tatum as well as bedrock Gospel, down home Blues,
swinging Big Bands, and even the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts that floated through the
school's corridors every Saturday evening. All these interconnected musical styles coalesced into
Ray's singular musical approach.
Billy Preston |
Billy Preston lights up the stage |
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Ashford and Simpson |
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Talented Valerie Simpson |
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