The term “Pop music” may seem to denigrate Ray’s talents, but think about how his work was like a beacon to most of the struggling Liverpool rock bands circa 1960, and think about his seminal influence on the whole world of 1960s soul and R&B. Considering how much pop music was based on those threads of musical evolution, it’s safe to say that Ray Charles’ influence on pop music was colossal.
My Mom is a HUGE Ray Charles fan, and I have a vinyl copy of his first album that I guard jealously.
He performed a free concert in the middle of Boston when I was a VERY young child, and we went. I remember great-sounding music and the backs of people’s knees.
Hey, he might have been a native Georgian, but he learned to play instruments (and to do electronics repairs, or maybe it was auto repairs) at a school for the blind in St. Augustine, Florida! And his first musical gig was at a club here in Tampa! At least, that’s what I heard on the radio this afternoon.
I remember when Ray Charles hosted SNL . . . forget the year, but it was with the original cast . . . the skit with “The Young Caucasians” doing their peppy whitebread version of “What Did I Say?” (followed up, of course, by Ray doing it his own way) was truly memorable.
One of my favorite SNL sketches is from around the same time. John Belushi plays Beethoven. Looking and acting very dignified, he sits down at his piano and prepares to play. Then he takes a sniff of something and mutters a quiet “a-choo.” He hits a couple of random notes on the piano, and then plays an energetic What’d I Say?, complete with a good Ray Charles impression and two girls doing backing vocals. Absolutely terrific. 
I remember this. As a kid I loved Flip Wilson and frequently impersonated him. That’s where I first heard of Ray Charles. I loved his music back then.
I remember wishing I lived in Georgia instead of Florida when Ray’s version of Georgia On My Mind became the state song.
To put it simply, his music just made you feel good, even when he sang the blues.
(just a pointless memory)…
I was at one time dating a rather musically challenged guy. He was puzzled about the number of Stevie Wonder CDs I owned and told me he’d never gotten into Stevie Wonder. I said, “Some day you’ll be driving down the road, and a Stevie Wonder song will come on, and you’ll suddenly say, ‘I really like Stevie Wonder’.”
Sure enough, one day we’re driving down the road, and a song comes on the radio, and boyfriend says, “You’re right, I really like Stevie Wonder. I can’t believe I never knew how good he is.”
“Honey,” I said, “that’s Ray Charles.”
Today my favorite radio station was playing all Ray Charles, and I realized it would take a very long time to get tired of listening to him.
Dang. Somehow in all the extensive coverage of Reagan’s funeral, I completely did not see any news stories on Ray Charles passing. Doesn’t help I felt so oversaturated by so much Reagan that I just didn’t try watching or reading any news for the past near-week now.
This is definitely the story I’d rather have mourned and honored through the entire nation, with a prime-time funeral procession on all the network channels tonight. The man’s personality was wonderfully infectious.
For anybody interested in watching, CMT is showing an episode of Crossroads tomorrow at 2pm featuring Mr. Ray and Travis Tritt. Watch and feel that bittersweet happiness that such a good musician is memorialized on film.
And to add something more, which hopefully is still going to be released:
Sorry, I just had to throw in a tangent that this anecdote gave me a five-minute straight belly laugh. Thanks, lainaf
Good bye** Elder Ray Charles**, your songs have made my life better.
Your gospel singing and piano playing was the equal to, if not better than, the very talented** Alabama Blind Boys**. And there are five of them. Thank you.
The depths of human agony that you cry, moan, and scream when you sing Oh, Come Back Baby is unparelled in music, excluding, maybe, only the greatest moments of high opera. This song exemplifies the essence of the Blues. Thank you.
Hank Williams, Jimmy Rogers, Hank Snow, and Patsy Cline will all be there to greet you when you get to hillbilly heaven and they will vote you into the Hillbilly Heaven Music Hall of Fame. Your life has been the antithesis of the lyrics of the song * Born to Lose*, but now we are losing you. But thank you anyway , Ray, for your excursion into deep soul of country music.
Last Thursday a friend of mine was shopping in a supermarket when suddenly the regular feed of popular music was interupted by a much amplified rendition of * America The Beautiful* unmistakably by Ray Charles. The shoppers stopped shopping for a minute and just listened. No one there knew at the time that Ray Charles had just died but the supermarket shoppers were simply overcome by the compelling emotion that resonated in his voice. The emotion was unadulterated love…love for a country. Genuine. Open. Unabashed.
Ray Charles deeply loved the United States of America. And we of this great country returned his love in spades.
Thank you, Ray, don’t rest in peace, jazz up those stuffed shirts in Heaven.
My God. Milum posted something that no sane person could object to.
The apocalypse must be upon us. 
But seriously, Milum. That was a thing on sheer beauty.