Biography
Ray Charles changed popular music in the U.S., drafting the blueprint for soul music in the 1950s and exerting a massive influence on the R&B and rock that came in its wake. Born in Albany, GA, in 1930, he spent most of his childhood in Greenville, FL, where he began losing his sight at age five, going fully blind by age seven. But by then he was already a talented pianist, playing boogie-woogie and absorbing the gospel and rural blues that surro...Read more