The trio even developed publicity photos for the group. Charles began to wear sunglasses while performing after this, and some authors even suggest that this began the trend for blind musicians to do the same. Ray Charles did not lose his sight until he was about seven years old. Years later, doctors suggested that juvenile glaucoma had caused his blindness.
But Charles always maintained that his visual impairment never hindered his career in any way. I played music since I was three. His father, a mechanic, and his mother, a sharecropper, moved the family to Greenville, Florida when he was an infant. One of the most traumatic events of his childhood was witnessing the drowning death of his younger brother.
Soon after his brother's death, Charles gradually began to lose his sight. He was blind by the age of 7, and his mother sent him to a state-sponsored school, the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, Florida — where he learned to read, write and arrange music in Braille. He also learned to play piano, organ, sax, clarinet and trumpet. The breadth of his musical interests ranged widely, from gospel to country, to blues.
Charles' mother died when he was 15, and for a year he toured on the "Chitlin' Circuit" in the South. While on the road, he picked up a love for heroin. At the of age 16, Charles moved to Seattle. There, he met a young Quincy Jones , a friend and collaborator he would keep for the rest of his life. Charles performed with the McSon Trio in s. His early playing style closely resembled the work of his two major influences — Charles Brown and Nat King Cole.
His passionate singing and intelligent melding of different genres remains the ideal by which many musicians continue to gauge their work. Skip to main content Skip to footer site map. With perfect pitch and an expressive voice, he combines worlds as diverse as jazz, country, rhythm and blues, and gospel to break your heart or make you dance.
Charles joined the local branch of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, an entertainers' union, in the hope that it would help him get work. It also gave him the use of the union hall's piano, since he did not have one at home.
He had started to build a reputation as a talented musician in Jacksonville, Florida but due to a lack of jobs moved to Orlando still at the young age of Charles lived in borderline poverty as it was difficult for musicians to find work after World War II.
Fellow musicians now called him "the Genius" because he never worked in just one style but rather blended different genres. In , when his contract with Atlantic ended, he signed a new deal with ABC-Paramount, getting better terms than many other artists at the time. Charles also earned the nickname "Father of Soul" with the release of this single What'd I Say, and in the decade to follow, he helped integrate the worlds of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music.
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