ABILITY Magazine | Ray Charles Interview
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If you're looking for Ray Charles on an evening where he plays two 55
minute shows, you can probably find him in one of two places: seated in
front of a piano or chessboard, In fact, the trim, 5'9" legendary "Genius
of Soul" feels at home in front of either board, regardless of how many
people are watching. Most people can picture Ray with his black sunglasses
and captivating smile sitting in front of a piano, yet the image of this
blind musician looking with his hands at a chess board may raise a few
questions. Like, how?
In a game where skill and determination weed out the more proficient
players, chess can be easily adapted to the needs of the visually
impaired. For instance, Ray plays on a board where each square is the same
color but the depth of the squares are altered-- the "black" squares are
raised while the "white" squares are lowered. In addition, the black
pieces may have sharper tops, whereas the white ones are flat, and all
pieces include a peg on the bottom that fit into any hole drilled into the
squares on the board. In order to make the game a bit more user-friendly,
you will probably hear Ray Charles and his partner calling out moves as
the game progresses, making this type of chess a louder, more interactive
experience.
Ray has managed to recruit a few of his band members, friends, and even
interviewers to play a chess game in between gigs on tour. As he sips warm
coffee with Bols gin, he is comfortably removed from long months on the
road promoting his latest album.
Brother Ray, as he is affectionately called, has certainly put his time in
on the road. In his musical career of over 47 years, Ray has successfully
mastered the blues, jazz, gospel, rock, pop, and country music continually
airing his soulful heart. He has teamed up with the best of the best in
each stylistic genre, including BB King, Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, Hank
Williams, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and, most recently, Eric Clapton.
Ray prefers not to describe himself as a specific kind of singer, just a
musician. "I'm not a country singer. I'm a singer who sings country songs.
I'm not a blues singer, but I can sing the blues. I'm not really a
crooner, but I can sing love songs. I'm not a specialist, but I'm a pretty
good utility man. I can play first base, second base, shortstop. I can
catch and maybe even pitch a little."
Whether it be the blues king or the granddaddy of soul, you get the
distinct feeling that Ray is singing what he knows. "His style of singing
is born out of his style of talking," explains David Ritz, coauthor of
Ray's autobiography, Brother Ray. "There are two moods which he exibits:
extreme highs and extreme lows...When he is excited, he is an obsessive
and poetic talker; he will chew your ear off until you are exhausted and
beat. When he is down, he becomes non-verbal-- his responses are
monosyllabic...Both moods are strong, and his sullen look will grip him as
suddenly as his smile." But his wry sense of humor is enduring-- and
endearing. Once, when booked into a glamorous Las Vegas hotel suite with a
bed two steps up, he said: "You know, I think these people are trying to
kill me." On the ceiling, above the bed, was a mirror. "Oh great!" he shot
back when informed of the extra.
Ray Charles Robinsons' autobiography, Brother Ray, details Ray's life,
which began on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia. He recounts his
days as a country boy in Greenville, Florida (about 30 miles from the
Georgia boarder) as the older of two boys cared for by his biological
mother, ŚRetha, whom he called "Mama." ŚRetha and the boys treated one of
his father's first wives, Mary Jane, like family, and Ray was known to
refer to her as "Mother." Mary Jane lived nearby and occasionally cared
for the boys as if they were her own. His father, Bailey Robinson, was
rarely seen by Ray or his brother George. Bailey worked driving spikes on
the railroad crossities in Florida and Georgia, hardly ever coming around
to see the family. It was ŚRetha who brought home whatever pennies she
could, doing chores for the local people in the neighborhood.
Ray speaks highly of his mama. To this day, he can clearly describe her
looks and continues to praise her wisdom, love, and discipline. His
experiences as a child were of complete love and acceptance, mixed with
periods of loss and suffering. Early childhood memories include adventures
in the colorful country with his brother George, and Sundays at the local
Baptist Church-- Ray's first introduction to religion and music. And then
he'll recall watching his four-year-old brother George accidentally drown
in a washtub as he desperately tried to pull him out. Ray was only five
then, and the most he could manage to do was scream for his mama to help.
Up until he was about six, Ray's vision was normal. Over a period of time,
images began to blur and he would spend five or ten minutes each morning
wiping the mucas from his eyes as they adjusted to the light. During that
year, ŚRetha has taken him to numerous doctors in the area, all of which
concluded that Ray would be blind and there was nothing to be done about
it. By the age of seven, with his mama's insistence, he reluctantly left
home for a state-supported boarding school-- the nearest one being St.
Augustine's for the blind and deaf, 160 miles away from home.
"Mama was a country woman with a whole lot of common sense. She understood
what most of our neighbor's didn't-- that I shouldn't grow dependent on
anyone except myself," Ray explains. "ŚOne of these days, I ain't gonna be
here,' she kept hammering inside my head. Meanwhile, she had me scrub
floors, chop wood, wash clothes, and play outside like all the other
kids...And her discipline didn't stop just Ścause I was blind. She wasn't
about to let me get away with any foolishness."
Ray's new school separated the deaf from the blind, the black from the
white, and the boys from the girls from ages six through eighteen. "It's
awfully strange thinking about separating small children-- black from
white-- when most of Śem can't even make out the difference between the
two colors," Ray said.
It was a tough move for him to be so far from home at the time and he
openly admits his crying. "I suppose I've always done my share of crying,
especially when there's no other way to contain my feelings. I know that
men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been
a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I
sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling and feeling is being human. Oh yes, I
cry."
He learned Braille and eventually sign language so the deaf kids could
"speak" to him in the palms of his hands as he read their lips. It wasn't
long before he was able to read books and work with his hands weaving and
carving. The second part of the school year, Ray was taken to the hospital
to have his right eye removed. It had been aching him badly, throbbing
from morning to night. To this day, doctors can only speculate as to what
the problem was, some saying perhaps glaucoma.
Brother Ray was always into music, whether it was pounding on Mr. Wylie
Pittman's piano in the neighborhood store or simply listening to the
jukebox. It was no surprise that his favorite subject in school was music
instruction, which he started at the age of eight. The formal instruction
began with exercises and classical pieces on the piano and, two years
later, on the clarinet.
Being constantly attracted, and distracted, by music of all sorts, Ray
discovered a variety of role models and musical styles. His keen sense of
hearing and rhythm enabled him to pick up not only the instruments and
melodies, but the arrangements how the horns, the reeds, and the rhythm
were arranged in different sections. During the early forties, Ray was
listening to the big bands with the rest of America, along with the middy
Mississippi blues that were only avaiable on "race records." Determined
and strong-willed, Ray would always find some way to sneak into the
practice rooms at school after hours to practce.
Ray Charles' mama warned him over and over again that one day, she
wouldn't be around, but nothing prepared Ray for the time when she passed
away. He was only fifteen when he had to return home from school for his
mother's funeral.
"When a boy has just one parent a mama he'll cling to her like she's
life itself," expresses Charles in Brother Ray. "And he'll never even
start thinking about what life would be like without her. The thought's
too terrible...I was unable to deal with the facts of death; I was unable
to accept the reality of death."
After his brother George had died, there was just mama. Now he was alone.
"I had to make up my own mind, my own way, in my own time," explained Ray.
"Never really had to do that before, and in many ways, I found the
situation frightening. But that week of silence and suffering also made me
harder, and that hardness has stayed with me the rest of my life."
Shortly thereafter, Ray dropped out of high school and moved to
Jacksonville, Florida. His intention in scuffling through Jacksonville was
to get some live musical experience in the big city. Ray responded to his
new surroundings by seeking out any piano he could find. "it was music
which drove me; it was my greatest pleasure and my greatest release. It
was how I expressed myself."
It was about this time Ray Charles Robinson ended up shortening his name,
so he wouldn't be confused with "Sugar Ray" Robinson, the popular boxer of
the time. Staying downtown with some friends of Mary Jane, Ray would jam
at any gig he could get. He would manage to memorize his way around town,
paying little attention to things like drainage pipes, sewers, or cracks
in the sidewalk.
Ray was always pretty courageous. When he was ten or eleven, he rode a
bicycle on practucally every dirt road and path in Greenville. During a
summer in Tallahassee, the fifteeen-year-old daredevil learned how to ride
a motorcycle. He loved the feeling of motion and just like getting around
Jacksonvile or any other town, "being blind wasn't gonna stop
me...somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I wasn't going to hurt
myselfI always had a lot of faith in my ability not to break my neck."
Ray's hearing is exceptional, and his instincts are sharp. "I suppose that
one proof of the rightness of my attitude is that as a kid, I was never
seriously hurt and there were only a few close calls," he comments.
Ray's acute hearing proved to be quite an asset to his career as well.
Though the ability to sing, play, write music and network his way around
the clubs barely put food on the table at first, nothing could contain
Ray's passion for music. After Jacksonville, it was Orlando, then Seattle,
and by 1948, his first album was released. At the time, Ray Charles was
most influenced by his idols, Nat Cole and Charles Brown. Ray recalls,
"But as I was shaving one morning, I thought, ŚWho knows your name?'"
Gradually, his own style developed.
It wasn't long before Ray Charles was forging the gospel with the blues.
His earliest tangible result of that was "I Got a Woman" for Ahmet Ertegun
and Atlantic Records in 1954. Record producer Jerry Wexler described
Brother Ray's voice then: "The emerging sound was unmistakable, brand-new,
yet ancient as the woods, the country church of Ray's childhood. The
breakthrough was close at hand."
And so began the "Genius of Soul," a hybrid sound that introduces God's
voice to man's feelings, which certainly raised a few eyebrows for a
while. Ray continued to experiment with his new style. Big bands, small
bands, solo, and a variety of backup choruses have spotted his long
career. He has also been fortunate enough to work without interference
from record companies through the years and be able to choose his own
songs.
"I am very into lyrics," Ray explains. "I start with what the words are
saying, what the storyline is saying, like a good script. It should really
capture me, do something for me. If I don't get it, it's not going to move
people, and if it's not going to move people, it's not going to happen. I
don't think I'm good because I'm blind, I think I'm good because I'm
good."
At one point, stage manager Carl Hunter explained that "he'd [Charles]
know it if the band missed a note, a single note. He'd know it if the
drummer's left shoelace was flapping. You be with us long enough, you'll
swear the man can see." In a performance, Ray's body moves to a different
part of the music, but his feet provide the most deft, airbone
accompaniment. It's his feet that give the backbeat, the downbeat, the
accents, and the tempo; it's the way Ray conducts. In fact, this way of
conducting is so powerful that "in rehearsal, if you walk between the band
and his feet, they all start cursing you," said Carl.
Ray's publicist, Bob Abrams, says, "You know you're getting a good show
when Ray's socks fall down...his feet are going up over the piano. One
sock falls half-mast. It's because of all the energy he expands. That's
his exercise."
Brother Ray's latest album/CD, "My World," is yet another example of his
timeless musical talent. His mix of socially conscious songs with pop
standards display a very contemporary side of Ray. There are songs about
concern for families and children, as well as peace and unity on the
planet.
"Music is powerful," Ray says. "As people listen to it, they can be
affected. They respond. But when I was doing this album, I wasn't trying
to create an overall message. It just turned out that we got some songs
that had something to say." And Ray, along with his all-star cast for some
of his songs (like Billy Preston, Mavis Staples, and Eric Clapton),
continues his musical experiments this time using synthesizers, sound
samplers, and drum machines.
This open attitude keeps Ray current with his fans. During the 1980's and
90's, he caught the attention of a whole new generation with his popular
"California Raisin" and Pepsi ("Uh huh") commercials. In fact, the first
Diet Pepsi commercial in the fall of 1990 proved to be so unexpectedly
popular that Ray Charles is taking home an estimated $3 million from Pepsi
after renegotiating his original one-year contract. And for those that
missed it, photo "opportunities" were available with life-size cutout
figures of Ray Charles and the Raeletts at selected supermarkets last
year.
"I must say, I'm proud of that commercial," explains Ray, in his fifth
year as spokesperson for Pepsi.
And what about those three sexy background singers dubbed the Reaeletts?
Well, Ray has never been one to hold back with women. Next to music, women
have always been the major objects of his attention. In Brother Ray, he
tells us that no day is worth starting without a love, and many of his
songs have been regarded as a sort of report of his fortunes and
misfortunes with women.
Battling substance abuse for a number of years, Ray finally enrolled in
the rehabiltation program at St. Francis hospital near Los Angeles in
1965. His decision to go cold turkey is an example of his committment to
himself, and after overcoming his physical and psychological addiction in
his own way, he left the hospital. It was at St. Francis that Ray learned
how to play chess and continued to play cards in Braille.
Ray's most recent bout with pain was a serious maddening of inner-ear
problems. "I was hearing sound within sounds," he says. For a man that
relies so heavily on his hearing, this proved to be quite a scare.
Although his problems have since been resolved, Ray felt motivated enough
to become involved with groups like Ear International, a Los Angeles-based
nonprofit organization for the hearing disabled. His personal donations
and fund raising have provided money for research in developing electronic
implants, among other devices.
In futhering his dedication to the hearing impaired, Ray urged Congress to
increase funding for research into hearing loss in 1987. His visit to
Washington, D.C. included speaking before the subcommittees for Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education, saying: "Most people take their
hearing for granted. I can't. My eyes are my handicap, but my ears are my
opportunity. My ears show me what my eyes can't. My ears tell me 99
percent of what I need to know about my world."
In addition to working with Ear International, Ray Charles has shown a
long and active concern and involvement with sickle cell disease programs.
In 1975, the National Association for Sickle Cell Disease (NASCD)
presented their first "Man of Distinction" Award to Ray, and he continues
as the L.A. chapter's Honorary Chairman since 1962.
What's next for this multi-talented entertainer? Well, as Ray himself
articulates, "music is nothing separate from me. It is me. I can't retire
from music any more than I can retire from my liver...I believe the Lord
will retire me when He's ready. And then I'll have plenty of time for a
long vacation."