Ray Charles is one of the entertainment industry's true survivors. His career has seen its share of mega highs and rock-bottom lows. Along the way, Brother Ray has been instrumental in shaping the direction of popular music culminating in the creation of modern soul.

Ray has a whole catalog of classic tunes, including "I Got A Woman," "What'd I Say" and "Georgia On My Mind." "Hit The Road Jack" was recently used in a car ad, and who can forget him in the Diet Pepsi ads from the early 1990s?

Most singers or musicians would consider themselves fortunate to have found success in one genre of music. Ray Charles absorbed the sounds he heard in blues, gospel, pop, country, rhythm and blues, jazz, and early rock 'n' roll, rearranged them in his head, and helped create what would come to be known as soul. He has been called "The Genius" as well as "The Father of Soul," and has influenced a wide variety of performers, both black and white.

Charles' musical career dates back to the 1940s, when he toured the Deep South with a variety of musical acts. He formed his own band in the 1950s, and achieved his greatest success during the early '60s. Since then his career has seen its share of ups and downs, but he re-emerges every decade or so to zap himself back into mass consciousness, reminding us of the unique sound that is Ray Charles.

There's no doubt that Charles is deserving of his reputation as a musical genius. He learned to play the clarinet and sax before becoming an accomplished keyboard player, all without being able to read music. His raw, impassioned singing style is incomparable, and he has dabbled in many forms of popular music with much success.

The fact that his music is now being used to sell auto mobile s is a testament to the classic, timeless quality of Ray Charles' musical style.

Charles rarely speaks of his philanthropic activities, which began back in the early years of his rise to fame. He has helped raise money for a number of charitable and humanitarian causes, including his contribution to the USA For Africa album in 1985.

On the flip side, he has a terrific sense of humor, possessing one of the most infectious grins and hearty laughs in the world of entertainment.

The now elderly Brother Ray has put his past as a hardcore womanizer behind him. His reputation as a world-traveling swinger has diminished over the past couple of decades, but we bet he can still charm the ladies with that Ray Charles sense of humor.

1955 to 1966 were Ray's Golden Years. He charted with several dozen hits on both the R&B and pop charts, including 10 R&B #1s. Three of these hit the top of the pop charts, including "I Can't Stop Loving You," which stayed at number one longer than any other song in 1962.

Countless Grammy Award nominations resulted in 12 wins since the early '60s, commencing with his double win for "Georgia On My Mind" in 1961, and culminating in the Lifetime Achievement Award he received in 1987. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982, and in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.

Besides his achievements in music, Ray has helped raise money for a variety of humanitarian causes over the decades. His charitable activities have included the support of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, and the State of Israel. In 1976, Brother Ray was honored by the Beverly Hills Lodge of the B'nai Brith as their "Man of the Year." Unfortunately he never cut an album of Yiddish folk songs to commemorate the event.

True, there may have been more suave and debonair singers out there, but Charles ranks up there as one of the coolest cats, with just a bit of a rough edge about him to lend to his authenticity. His coolness comes from way down deep inside. You can hear it in his impassioned vocalizing on just about anything he's ever recorded. It's even evident in the way he speaks and laughs.

Musically, his arrangement of "Hit The Road Jack" has one of the coolest riffs ever, and still sounds amazing today.

Ray was fortunate enough to have been performing during the '50s and '60s, when soul men like himself wore some of the sharpest suits ever. Lucky for him, he couldn't actually see some of the garish plaid jackets chosen for him during the '70s and '80s.

"Music is nothing separate from me. It is me... You'd have to remove the music surgically." --- Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson was born in Albany , Georgia , on September 23, 1930 . Three months later, his parents Aretha and Baily hit the road with little Ray in tow, and relocated to Greenville , Florida . Due to a case of glaucoma, Ray started going blind at the age of five. His ailment went untreated, resulting in total blindness by the time he was seven.

seeing music a different way

Charles was enrolled in the St. Augustine School For The Deaf and Blind, where he picked up a variety of musical instruments before settling on the piano. Upon discovering mathematics' correlation to music, he began writing and arranging music in his head. One of the nicknames he would eventually pick up would be "The Genius."

Following his mother's death in 1946, young Ray left St. Augustine's and traveled throughout the South with a variety of bands, playing piano, sax and clarinet. He moved to Seattle in 1948, where he formed the McSon Trio, who became the first black performers in the Northwest to have a fully sponsored television show. It was also in Seattle that Ray met a young trumpet player named Quincy Jones, which marked the start of a lifelong friendship.

Around this time, Ray dropped Robinson from his stage name, so as not to be mistaken for another famous Ray Robinson, boxer "Sugar" Ray. Ray Charles began his professional recording career when he moved to LA in 1950. He landed two top ten hits while with the Swingtime label, and was signed to Atlantic Records in 1952. During this time, Ray also played and arranged for blues and R&B legends such as Lowell Fulson, Guitar Slim and Ruth Brown.

In 1954, Charles formed his own band. During his tenure at Atlantic , he began fusing some of the different styles of music he had been hearing and playing since a young boy. He skillfully melded gospel, blues, rhythm and blues, and jazz, thus influencing the early rock 'n' roll sound in the process. "The Genius" is often credited with creating a sound which came to be known as "soul."

Ray Charles scored his first #1 on the R&B charts in 1955, with "I've Got A Woman." With his fourth R&B number one, "What I'd Say," Charles cracked the pop top 10, as the single reached number six in the summer of '59.

With his contract up at Atlantic , Charles signed to the ABC-Paramount label in 1960, and began to reach an even wider audience. The hits began with his first pop chart number one, the classic "Georgia On My Mind," which hit the top in November. 1960 also marked the first time the singer reached the top 10 with one of his long players, with "The Genius Hits The Road." This newfound crossover success earned him his first four Grammys in 1961, including two awards for his vocal performance on " Georgia ," and Best Album Vocal Performance for The Genius of Ray Charles.

More hits followed in 1961, including the jazz/soul instrumental "One Mint Julep" (#1 R&B, #8 pop), the top five album Genius + Soul = Jazz, and the pop and R&B chart topper "Hit The Road Jack."

1962 was Ray Charles' most successful year ever. He began the year at the top of the R&B charts with "Unchain My Heart." For his next release, Charles mined the country music songbook, and put a soulful spin on some songs he had grown up hearing. The result was Modern Sounds In Country and Western Music, an album with pop, country and blues overtones. The album spent 14 weeks at the top of Billboard's Top 200 chart, and produced the best-selling single on both the pop and R&B charts for the entire year.

"I Can't Stop Loving You" (a Grammy winner in '63) held the number one spot on the R&B chart for an incredible 10 weeks. Volume Two of the collection reached #2 on the album charts, and gave Charles his third R&B #1 of the year in "You Are My Sunshine."

In 1963, Ray Charles received yet another Grammy Award for best R&B recording, for the prophetically titled "Busted." He had previously been arrested for heroin use, but never served any jail time. In 1965, he faced a federal narcotics rap, and was forced to kick the habit.

The bust and treatment put a dent in his performing schedule, but Ray Charles returned in 1966 with the hits "Crying Time," and his final R&B #1, "Let's Go Get Stoned." He also contributed to the soundtracks of two major films, The Cincinnati Kid in 1965, and In The Heat of the Night in 1967.

Charles spent the rest of the '60s and '70s relentlessly touring, and releasing at least one album per year. He even made a cameo appearance as himself in 1980's The Blues Brothers movie, highlighting Charles' sense of humor. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982, and made a successful return to country music with the release of Friendship in 1984, an album of duets with some of the biggest names in that genre.

1985 marked Ray's important contribution to USA For Africa's recording of "We Are The World." In 1990, the Genius was introduced to a whole new audience with his appearances in Diet Pepsi TV ads, along with his Raylettes. 1996 saw the release of Strong Love Affair on old buddy Quincy Jones' Qwest label.

Ray Charles continues to perform live, and released Thanks For Bringing Love Around Again in 2002, which includes a new version of his first big pop success, "What I'd Say."

What else do you need to know?