This week sucks...

We've lost a legend...



Ray Charles Robinson
1930 - 2004

What is there to say? The man could sing the phone book and make your toes tap. There will never be another musician who did as much to break down the perceived walls of musical genres as much as Ray Charles did. One of the first artists to record the blasphemous idea of taking gospel songs and putting the devil's words to them, he has left a deep mark in American music.

He touched everyone with a genuine kindness. Just ask anyone who's ever met him. I was fortunate enough to shake his hand in Houston, Texas when I was a child. He played for a benefit concert Spring Woods Middle school took myself and about 300 other students to. Probably the greatest "field trip" a kid could ever have. I'll never forget the sound of Steve Croppers' guitar, and Ray Charles' voice cutting though the air with more soul than I could handle.



I remember being teased by my friend Rodney, for letting a tear run down my cheek when he sang "Georgia on my mind". I also remember that being one of the first moments I didn't care what others thought. Ray Charles wasn't exactly the kind of guy you would expect to hear most kids my age listening to...but this man, shared the Bates family stereo with the likes of Chuck Berry, The Beatles, and B.B. King. I look back often and thank God that I was fortunate enough to be raised in a family where great American music was dispensed like candy.



Hell the man was even in my favorite movie of all time, The Blues Brothers!

He was a true genius who overcame more than most people know about offhand. Blind as a child, orphaned soon after that, and cursed with the desire to make great music regardless of genre...he chose to defy easy definition. Charles was no angel. His womanizing was legendary, and he struggled with a heroin addiction for nearly 20 years before quitting cold turkey in 1965 after an arrest at the Boston airport.

He inspired soulfulness in musicians everywhere. When you think about playing something with feeling, emulating Ray Charles is damn good place to start. After all...he spent his life performing the same magnificent trick over and over again. He took pain, and transformed it into something beautiful and uplifting.

My god, I'm gonna miss him.