One of the last performances by Ray Charles, at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, 2003 (Photo: Victor Diaz Lamich)
Ray Charles overcame racism, poverty, and blindness to gain worldwide acclaim as a singer, songwriter, pianist, and arranger. As a lad, he had ears like a sonic sponge, absorbing everything from blues to country and western music. Infusing R&B with the fervor of down-home gospel music, he helped pioneer the genre of soul music. His unique voice and passionate style made him one of the most beloved musicians of our time.
With his genius for fusing gospel, rhythm and blues, soul, blues, jazz, country, rock, and pop, Charles became one of the most innovative and influential talents in American music. He wrote such enduring songs as “Hallelujah, I Love Her So” and “What’d I Say” and made every other song his own—popular standards (“Georgia On My Mind,” “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”), pop hits (“Eleanor Rigby”), crossover country (“You Are My Sunshine,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You”), and a stirring interpretation of “America the Beautiful.”
Join music curator John Edward Hasse as he illuminates Ray Charles’s unique life story and illustrates—with analysis, anecdotes, photos, and video clips—his enduring contributions to American culture.
Hasse, curator of American music at the American History Museum, curated the exhibition Ray Charles: “The Genius.”
Smithsonian Connections
Piano-playing connected them, but they couldn’t have been more different. Smithsonian.com reports on Ray Charles’s 1972 visit with Richard Nixon in the Oval Office, and offers a look at one of his jackets in the collection of the new African American History and Culture Museum.
