Ray Charles, RIP

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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Music legend Ray Charles has died, according to spokesman Jerry Digney.

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:38 (twenty-two years ago)

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:40 (twenty-two years ago)

oh, wow.

R.I.P.

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:41 (twenty-two years ago)

There were reports last month that he didn't have long to live... RIP.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:42 (twenty-two years ago)

GODDAMMIT!

(I wrote this already but it got erased?)

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

whoops, thinking of ILM, nevermind.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Georgia was never sweeter.. rip

― luna (luna.c), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Ray Charles, master of music who combined blues, gospel, country, dies at 73
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — 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, died Thursday, a spokesman said. He was 73.
Charles died at his Beverly Hills home surrounded by family and friends, said spokesman 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 a historic landmark.
Blind by age 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.
“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,” singer Van Morrison told Rolling Stone magazine in April.
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.

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

there was plenty of action left in those keys

rip

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:48 (twenty-two years ago)

how's this for a headline?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=501&e=4&u=/ap/20040610/ap_on_en_mu/obit_charles

"Grammy-Winning Crooner Ray Charles Dies"

FUCK the AP editor who used the term 'Crooner'.

― Kingfish Disraeli (Kingfish), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:48 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/05.14.03/gifs/ray-charles-0320-younger.jpg

Good country singer!

― andy, Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

also jazz!

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:53 (twenty-two years ago)

oh, wow.

i was just listening to him last night.

oh, wow.

rip

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

he was kinda a "crooner." he did something that could easily be considered a "croon."

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:56 (twenty-two years ago)

tonight, when i get home, i will play "you don't know me" in memory. rip.

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:58 (twenty-two years ago)

RIP and then some, and then some again.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 10 June 2004 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)

:-( He did one of the best Tanglewood concerts I've ever seen. RIP

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:13 (twenty-two years ago)

i saw him at ravinia. well, i saw him on a tv screen at ravinia, since i was on the lawn and too far from the stage to see him directly. but i heard him, and he was pretty damn good if my 15-year-old recollections are worth anything.

needless to say his records (the better ones) are among the greatest things anyone has ever made.

his xmas album is a personal favorite.

i think 73 is too young, frankly.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I saw him at the Kentucky State Fair, for free. It was great, and thankfully he didn't do the Diet Pepsi ad, which was big at the time.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I missed him at the '98 Mtl Jazz Festival, because I was broke.

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Rest in peace.

I normally get him mixed up with Ray Allan and Lord Charles, but thankfully not this time.

― Keith Watson (kmw), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Charles died of acute liver disease at his Beverly Hills home at 11:35 a.m., surrounded by family and friends, said spokesman Jerry Digney.

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Sad.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh NO!

RIP

― AdamL :') (nordicskilla), Thursday, 10 June 2004 20:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Aw, that's awful. He was a really good shouter as well as singer.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 10 June 2004 20:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I've got a number of his albums. To me, my favourites have to be the title track for 'In the Heat of the Night' and 'Georgia on my Mind'.

He was brilliant as "Ray", the music emporium owner in the Blue Brothers.

RIP Ray, and thanks for all the wonderful music.

― C J (C J), Friday, 11 June 2004 07:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Rest In Peace. Too soon, even at 73 years. The Genius Of Soul box is amazing, and what other scattered LPs I have are so precious to. But for me (and I suspect many of my generation) he'll forever be Ray of Ray's Music Exchange...

― stevie (stevie), Friday, 11 June 2004 09:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Mr. Ray Charles deserves all his plaudits. He spilled more soul humming in the shower than Janet Jackson has in her entire career. He could make me smile just using his voice.

It was unfortunate that he was overfond of cheesy arrangements for his background singers (for example, I Can't Stop Loving You). He also had the reputation as a hard-assed boss among his touring musicians. But when he caressed those piano keys and started to sing, how could you not forgive him? Damn, but he was fine. Lucky for us it's all on record.

― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 11 June 2004 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

'He spilled more soul humming in the shower than Janet Jackson has in her entire career'

I don't give a fuck abt janet jackson and don't own a ray charles CD but can we plz not use this thread to do a 'dead ARTIST is so much better than [insert name of current pop star]' please cuz its lame!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 11 June 2004 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

But, Julio, I am lame - so you won't get far telling me not to be lame. I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam.

― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 11 June 2004 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I just hope that Elvis Costello isn't invited to give the eulogy.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Friday, 11 June 2004 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

HE WAS THE BOMB....

― NICOLE MARIE VITULLI, Friday, 11 June 2004 19:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Aimless, what does Janet Jackson have to do with Ray Charles beyond being a black musician?

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 11 June 2004 20:04 (twenty-two years ago)

The image of 'spilling' just naturally brought her to mind, I guess.

― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 11 June 2004 21:51 (twenty-two years ago)

thank you brother ray
rip

― de, Friday, 11 June 2004 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

RIP.

It's really sad that his death'll be overshadowed by Ronald Reagan's.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 12 June 2004 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

six years pass...

I feel like I should know this: Exactly what did Ray appropriate from gospel music that all those religious folk found so blasphemous? Was it just his chord changes, or the call-and-response vocals? Or something else?

― Canadian Club & Dr. Pepper (Myonga Vön Bontee), Thursday, 11 November 2010 09:25 (fifteen years ago)

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