Your comments help persuade me that we need a topic/thread to deal with “the day the music died” moments. Ray was definitely one of those whose absence was immediately felt (by me anyway). Following Don McLean’s lead from American Pie who all needs to be listed as music immortals who were so important that they will never be replaced or equaled?
A starter list:
Buddy Holly
Elvis
Sinatra
Michael Jackson
I’ve ALWAYS know about Ray Charles it seems. It would be like asking me when I first heard about Elvis or Marilyn Monroe. It’s just not possible to answer the question.
Not to be picky, but did you know about Ray Charles at, or soon after, your birth? (Sorry, I don’t remember your age.)
The Blues Brothers movie, probably in 1982 or so, on TV. Not sure if I’d call myself a fan, I generally don’t like music all that much. I appreciate him, though.
As stated above, I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t aware of him. That said, I was born in 1973, and my first time listening to Ray of my own choosing was his duet with Billy Joel, Baby Grand.
I have a friend that used to work with touring productions of Broadway shows when they would come to town. She called me out of the blue several years ago, and explained that her “connections” with the different performance venues in the city had managed to get her 2 free tickets to see Ray Charles live in concert, and that I was going with her.
It was fantastic. Just him and a piano. This would have been late 2002/early 2003, and it was his last stop in Louisville, KY before he died.
That places the approximate time we saw him at Opryland. His voice was about gone and his piano licks were a little sloppy but it was great to see him after all the years I had been a fan. He still had the power to hold an audience enthralled.
The Flip Wilson Show, circa 1972.
I’m 53 and I get what you’re asking. All I’m saying is that I don’t recall NOT knowing of Ray Charles. I didn’t discover him in the 80s or anything, he’s just always been there, like Julie Andrews, or Bing Crosby, or Elvis, and the like.
Cool enough. Sorry for being snotty! 
Of the ones you mentioned only Der Bingle was always there for me. I remember his voice from the radio not long after I was able to sit up by myself. Sinatra and George Shearing were the most impressive early sounds for me.
The old analog Georgia Public Broadcasting sign off (I assume I would have seen/heard it sometime in the 80s, but I can’t tell you exactly when)
Hit the Road Jack as a hit on the radio in the 60s. Then awareness of What’d I Say. Then the strange fact that he was blind and was supposedly addicted to heroin.
I’m another guy who can’t remember my first exposure to Ray Charles. The closest thing I can tell you is that I already knew who he was when he hosted Saturday Night Live in 1977.
I remember on SNL, I would have been 10, or 11.
Seems like he was always around, but I guess the first song that had any impact on me was most likely “I Got A Woman” in the late 50s. I got to see him a couple of times in my life, but my favorite was at Wolf Trap in Virginia in about 1993. He totally faked out the audience as he shuffled out onto the stage looking like a tired old man, shoulders slumped as he sat down at the piano, and plunked out a couple of riffs. I thought “Ah shit, this can’t be good.” He started into “I Got A Woman” kind of tentatively and by the end of the song was pounding the keyboard, leaning over backward, and moaning “Heyyyy, hunnhhh. . .” Great concert. 
I was born in 1980, so this is similar to my experience. I am sure that I heard his songs before then, as I was exposed to a wide variety of music, but that’s close to when I was really aware of who he was.
However, I do remember the Quincy Jones version of the Brother’s Johnson hit “I’ll be Good to You”- which was a Chaka Khan and Ray Charles duet as being a big hit on the radio I listened to at the time. Wikipedia tells me it was released in 1989 and #18 on the Hot 100 and #1 Black Singles and Dance Club Play. I wasn’t going to any dance clubs but I listened to a lot of Top 40 at the time. My local Top 40 station was heavy on R&B hits.
For me, Ray Charles was one of those performers who seemed to have been always around. Of course, I was born in 1965 and Charles’ breakout recordings were in the 50s so it would be natural for me to think that. Unfortunately, I think that made me take him for granted to a certain degree which is why it took me awhile to really start appreciating him.
Probably in the '70s; could have been the '60s. Couldn’t tell you any of the songs he sang, though.
In the 1950s, I was a DJ at southern stations, we had some early Ray releases in the library, but we weren’t allowed to play them, they were too “racy”. “I Got a Woman” was one of them I was familiar with. His airplay was restricted to R&B ( = “colored”) stations until “What’d I Say” crossed over in 1959. I think “I Got a Woman” was re-released and maybe remixed later on.
Similar to me. I remember, as a kid, hearing him sing America The Beautiful and really noticing how long he would hold off on delivering the lyric. There was the choir singing the normal phrasing and he would how up, like, 17 minutes later, and nail it.
But that was part of Ray Charles being part of the cultural fabric I grew up with. I didn’t start to really get into him until after I got into music as a teen and young adult. ETA: But when I heard Lonely Avenue, that was it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5s0l2igFOLw I just love that song.