Ray Charles dies
2004-06-10 21:53
Beverley Hills - Ray Charles, the Grammy-winning crooner who blended gospel and blues in such crowd-pleasers as What'd I Say and heartfelt ballads like Georgia on My Mind, has died at the age of 73.
Charles died at his Beverly Hills home surrounded by family and friends, said spokesperson Jerry Digney.
Charles's last public appearance was alongside Clint Eastwood on April 30, when the city of Los Angeles designated the singer's studios, built 40 years ago in central Los Angeles, as an historic landmark.
Blind by the age of seven and an orphan at 15, Charles spent his life shattering any notion of musical boundaries and defying easy definition.
A gifted pianist and saxophonist, he dabbled in country, jazz, big band and blues, and put his stamp on it all with a deep, warm voice roughened by heartbreak from a hardscrabble childhood in the segregated south.
Singer Van Morrison told Rolling Stone magazine in April: "His sound was stunning - it was the blues, it was R&B, it was gospel, it was swing - it was all the stuff I was listening to before that, but rolled into one amazing, soulful thing."
Georgia's official state song
Charles won nine of his 12 Grammy Awards between 1960 and 1966, including the best R&B recording three consecutive years (Hit the Road, Jack, I Can't Stop Loving You and Busted).
His versions of other songs are also well known, including Makin' Whoopee and a stirring America the Beautiful.
Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell wrote Georgia on My Mind in 1931, but it didn't become Georgia's official state song until 1979, long after Charles turned it into an American standard.
- SAPA