Entertainment,Thoughts, and Concerns of Gary Graefen

Chicago Hot Video,Playlist And Photos

2012-01-29T14:04:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chicago is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The self-described "rock and roll band with horns" began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had a steady stream of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Second only to The Beach Boys in terms of Billboardsingles and albums chart success among American bands, Chicago is one of the longest running and most successful pop/rock and roll groups.^[1]

Chicago re-teamed with producer Phil Ramone in October 2010 to begin work on a new album.^[2]^[3]

According to Billboard, Chicago was the leading US singles charting group during the 1970s. They have sold over 38 million units in the US, with 22 gold, 18 platinum, and 8 multi-platinum albums.^[4]^[5] Over the course of their career they have charted five No. 1 albums, and have had 21 top ten hits.

Chicago
Chicago in 2004 (L-R): Keith Howland, James Pankow, Bill Champlin, Walt Parazaider, Tris Imboden, Lee Loughnane, Robert Lamm (view blocked) and Jason Scheff.
Background information
Also known as	The Big Thing, The Chicago Transit Authority
Origin	Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genres	Rock, Jazz fusion, Progressive rock, Soft rock,power ballad rock
Years active	1967–present
Labels	Columbia, Full Moon, Rhino
Associated acts	The Beach Boys, Doobie Brothers, Earth, Wind & Fire, Sons of Champlin, Toto, America
Website	www.chicagotheband.com
Members
Robert Lamm James Pankow Lee Loughnane Walter Parazaider Jason Scheff Tris Imboden Keith Howland Drew Hester Lou Pardini
Past members
Danny Seraphine Peter Cetera Terry Kath Laudir de Oliveira Donnie Dacus Chris Pinnick Bill Champlin Dawayne Bailey

[hide]

Beginnings

Chicago co-founder/drummer Danny Seraphine

The band was formed when a group of DePaul University students, together with Marvin Cantera and Andre Jugo (music students who had been playing local late-night clubs), recruited a couple of other students from the university and decided to meet in saxophonist Walter Parazaider's apartment. The five musicians consisted of Parazaider, guitarist Terry Kath, drummer Danny Seraphine, trombonist James Pankow,trumpet player Lee Loughnane. The last to arrive was keyboardist Robert Lamm, a music major from Chicago's Roosevelt University. The group of six called themselves The Big Thing, and continued playing top-40 hits, but realized that they were missing a tenor voice (Lamm and Kath both sang in the baritone range); the voice they were missing belonged to local bassist Peter Cetera.^[6]

While gaining some success as a cover band, the group began working on original songs. In June 1968, they moved to Los Angeles, California under the guidance of their friend and manager James William Guercio, and signed with Columbia Records. After signing with Guercio, The Big Thing changed their name to Chicago Transit Authority.^[1]

Their first record (released in April 1969), the eponymous The Chicago Transit Authority (sometimes informally referred to simply as CTA), was a double album — very rare for a first release — featuring jazzy instrumentals, extended jams featuringLatin percussion, and experimental, feedback-laden guitar abstraction. It sold over one million copies by 1970, and was awarded a platinum disc.^[7] The album began to receive heavy airplay on the newly popular FM radio band; it included a number of pop-rock songs—"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?", "Beginnings", and "Questions 67 and 68": they would later be edited to an AM radio-friendly length and released as singles.

Soon after the album's release, the band's name was shortened to Chicago, when the actual Chicago Transit Authority threatened legal action.^[8]^[9]

[edit]Greatest prominence

The band's popularity increased with the release of their second album, titled Chicago (also known as Chicago II), which was another double-LP set and was the group's breakthrough album. The centerpiece track was a seven-part, 13-minute suite composed by James Pankow called "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" (the structure of this suite was inspired by Pankow's love for classical music). The suite yielded two top ten hits: the crescendo-filled "Make Me Smile" (No. 9 U.S.) and ballad "Colour My World", both sung by Terry Kath. Among the other popular tracks on the album: Robert Lamm's dynamic but cryptic "25 or 6 to 4" (Chicago's first Top 5 hit), which was a reference to a songwriter trying to write at 25 or 26 minutes to 4 in the morning, and was sung by Peter Cetera with wah-wah guitar by Kath; the lengthy war-protest song "It Better End Soon"; and, at the end, Cetera's 1969 moon landing-inspired "Where Do We Go from Here?". The double-LP album's inner cover includes—in addition to the playlist—the entire lyrics to "It Better End Soon", and two declarations: "This album should be experienced sequentially" (this would suggest that Chicago is a concept album), and, "With this album, we dedicate ourselves, our futures and our energies to the people of the revolution. And the revolution in all of its forms."

The band recorded and released LPs at a rate of at least one album per year from their third album in 1971 through the 1970s. During this period, the group's album titles invariably consisted of the band's name followed by a Roman numeral, indicating the album's sequence in their canon, a naming pattern that lent an encyclopedic aura to the band's work. The exceptions to this scheme were the band's fourth album, a live boxed set entitled Chicago at Carnegie Hall, their twelfth album Hot Streets, and the Arabic-numbered Chicago 13. While the live album itself did not bear a number, each of the four discs within the set was numbered Volumes I through IV. The distinctive Chicago logo was designed by Nick Fasciano (bearing more than a passing resemblance to the Coca-Cola logo) and has graced every album cover (except No. 15, Greatest Hits Vol. 2) in one form or another—for example, as an American flag on III, a piece of wood on V, a U.S. dollar bill on VI, an embroidered patch on VIII, a chocolate bar on X, a fingerprint on XIV, a computer silicon chip on 16, and a mosaic on 18.

In 1971, Chicago released the ambitious quadruple-album live set, Chicago at Carnegie Hall Volumes I, II, III, and IV, consisting of live performances, mostly of music from their first three albums, from a week-long run at the famous venue; along with the James Gang and Led Zeppelin in 1969, Chicago was one of the few rock bands to play the historic concert hall since The Beatles performed there on February 12, 1964. The performances and sound quality were judged sub-par; in fact, trombonist James Pankow went on record to say that "the horn section sounded like kazoos." The packaging of the album also contained some rather strident political messaging about how "We [youth] can change The System," including massive wall posters and voter registration information. Nevertheless, Chicago at Carnegie Hall went on to become the best-selling box set by a rock act, and held that distinction for 15 years.

The group bounced back in 1972 with their first single-disc release, Chicago V, a diverse set that reached number one on both the Billboard pop and jazz albums charts and yielded the Robert Lamm-composed-and-sung radio hit and perennial fan favorite "Saturday in the Park", which mixed everyday life and political yearning in a more subtle way. It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1972. Chicago would long open their concerts with the hit song. Another Lamm-composed hit song therein was "Dialogue (Part I & II)", which featured a musical "debate" between a political activist (sung by Kath) and a blasé college student (sung by Cetera).

In 1973, the group's manager, Guercio, produced and directed Electra Glide in Blue, a movie about an Arizona motorcycle policeman. The movie starred Robert Blake and featured Cetera, Kath, Loughnane, and Parazaider in supporting roles. The group also appeared prominently on the movie's soundtrack.

Other successful albums and singles followed in each of the succeeding years. 1973's Chicago VI topped the charts buoyed by the hits "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" (No. 10 U.S.) and "Just You 'N' Me" (No. 4 U.S.) and it was also the first of several albums to include Brazilian jazz percussionist Laudir de Oliveira. Chicago VII, the band's double-disc 1974 release, featured the Cetera-composed "Wishing You Were Here", (No. 11 U.S.) sung by Terry Kath and Cetera with background vocals by Cetera and The Beach Boys and some fusion jazz. Chicago VII also provided one of the group's enduring signature tunes, the anthemic "(I've Been) Searchin' So Long", which started with as a soft ballad and culminated in a hard-rock conclusion featuring Terry Kath's electric guitar soloing against the Chicago horn section and a soaring string arrangement by Jimmie Haskell. "Happy Man," another song from Chicago VII, was also a popular favorite on FM radio, was a big hit in South America and subsequently covered by Tony Orlando and Dawn on their album To Be With You. Their 1975 release, Chicago VIII, featured the political allegory "Harry Truman" and the nostalgic Pankow-composed "Old Days". Both hits reached the Top 15, with the latter even reaching the Top Five. That summer also saw a very successful joint tour across America with The Beach Boys, with both acts performing separately, then coming together for a rousing finale. The tour was considered one of the highest grossing in rock music up to that time.

Chicago gave a concert in Mexico City in 1975 at the Auditorio Nacional which was highly appreciated by the audience, contrary to the Mexican press later reviewing it as not one of the band’s better performances, presumably for the band not being "in the best of shape". The tickets for the concert sold so fast that thousands of people were unable to get in, so Terry Kath asked those inside to applaud for those standing outside. Carmen Romano de López Portillo, the wife of México's then-President José López Portillo, is said to have been in first row of the audience.^{[citation needed]}

But for all their effort, none of their singles went to number one until Chicago X in 1976, when Cetera's ballad "If You Leave Me Now" climbed to the top of the charts and remained there for two weeks. The song also won Chicago their only Grammy award, for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group in 1977. Ironically, the tune almost did not make the cut for the album; "If You Leave Me Now" was recorded at the very last minute. The huge success of the song would foreshadow a later reliance on ballads that would typecast the group on radio, despite the presence of mellower songs on all the previous albums. The group's 1977 release, Chicago XI, was another big success for the band; it included Cetera's hit ballad "Baby, What a Big Surprise", a No. 4 U.S. hit which became one of the group's last big hits of the decade.

[edit]Time of transition

1978 was a tragic and transitional year for Chicago. The year began with an acrimonious split with long-time manager James William Guercio. Then, on January 23, guitarist/singer-songwriter/group co-founder Terry Kath died of an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound. One account describes Kath's drunken last words to guitar tech Don Johnson: "Don't worry, guys. It isn't even loaded. See?"^[10] Kath was the group's leader onstage, and for many longtime fans, its musical soul. Terry Kath's shocking death could have meant the end for Chicago, but encouraged by friends and admirers such as Doc Severinsen, the group held fast and soldiered on.

After auditioning over 30 potential replacements for Kath, Chicago decided upon guitarist/singer/songwriter Donnie Dacus, who joined the band in April 1978 just in time for the Hot Streets album (he was also being filmed for the musical Hair at the time). Its energetic lead-off single, "Alive Again", brought Chicago back to the Top 15; James Pankow wrote it "originally as a love song but ultimately as recognition of Kath's guiding spirit shining down from above."^[11] The group was briefly re-energized by Dacus, whose long blond hair and rock star image stage presence seemingly overshadowed his musical abilities. The kinetic Dacus may have been out of character for the normally laid-back Chicago, but he could sing and play, and the band responded by delivering some of their tightest live performances ever.Hot Streets, with producer Phil Ramone now at the helm, was Chicago's first album with an actual title rather than a number and was the band's first LP to have a picture of the band (shot by photographer Norman Seeff) featured prominently on the cover (with the ubiquitous logo downsized), two moves that were seen by many as a way to indicate the band had changed following Kath's death. To a degree, the band returned to the old naming scheme on its subsequent releases, although most titles would now bear Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals. (Coincidentally, Hot Streets, the band's twelfth album, peaked at #12 on the Billboard charts; it was Chicago's first release since their debut to fail to make the Top 10.) The release of Hot Streets also marked a move somewhat away from the jazz-rock direction favored by Kath and towards more pop songs and ballads. Dacus didn't last long, only staying with the band through the 1979 album Chicago 13(Dacus is also featured in a promotional video on the DVD included in the Rhino Records Chicago box set from 2003). 13, again produced by Phil Ramone, was the group's first studio album not to contain a Top 40 hit.

1980's Chicago XIV, produced by Tom Dowd, relegated the horn section to the background on a number of tracks, and the album's two singles failed to make the Top 40. Production values were spare, perhaps due to the lean, stripped-down New Wave music that was popular at the time. Chris Pinnick handled the guitar duties and came close to the "Kath sound," but did not sing. He would remain with the band through 1985. Believing the band to no longer be commercially viable,Columbia Records dropped them from its roster in 1981 and released a second "Greatest Hits" volume later that year to fulfill its contractual obligation.

The second major phase of the band's career took off in late 1981—with a new producer (David Foster), a new label (Warner Brothers), and the addition ofkeyboardist/guitarist/singer Bill Champlin (of Sons of Champlin fame) and guitarist Chris Pinnick (who had played on XIV and subsequent tour); percussionist Laudir de Oliveira also departed at this time along with former Buckingham and sax player Marty Grebb, who had joined the group briefly for the XIV tour.

Foster brought in studio musicians for some of the tracks on Chicago 16 (including the core members of Toto), and Chicago once again topped the charts with the song "Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away", which was featured in the soundtrack of the Daryl Hannah film Summer Lovers. This was followed up by a string-ladenpower ballad that barely missed the top 20, "Love Me Tomorrow". The following album, Chicago 17, became the biggest selling album of the band's history, producing two more Top Ten singles—"You're the Inspiration" and "Hard Habit to Break" (both No. 3 hits)—and two other singles: "Stay the Night" (No. 16) and "Along Comes a Woman" (No. 14). Peter's brother, Kenny Cetera, was brought into the group for the 17 tour to add percussion and high harmony vocals.

Lead vocalist Peter Cetera's desire to record a second solo album (he'd done his eponymous first one in 1981) and not continue with the band's gruelling tour schedule caused him to leave Chicago in 1985. Although other band members (including Lamm and Champlin) have released solo material, Cetera has proved the most successful—topping the pop charts with The Karate Kid, Part II theme song "Glory of Love", and with "The Next Time I Fall" (a duet with Amy Grant). Two more songs—a 1988 solo hit called "One Good Woman" (No. 4 U.S.) and a 1989 duet with Cher called "After All" (No. 6 U.S.)—reached the Top Ten.

[edit]The post-Cetera era

Cetera was replaced in September 1985 by bassist/singer/songwriter Jason Scheff, son of Elvis Presley's bassist Jerry Scheff, who joined the band for the final Foster-produced album Chicago 18. This album was not as commercially successful as the previous two, but still produced the No. 3 single "Will You Still Love Me?", a Top 5 Adult Contemporary and Top 20 Pop song ("If She Would Have Been Faithful..."), and also a high-tech and highly programmed version of "25 or 6 to 4" with a concept video that got a lot of airplay on MTV. Soon after the album was recorded, the band hired guitarist Dawayne Bailey from Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band. Bailey and Scheff had previously played in bands together, so Scheff introduced Bailey to the band in time for the Chicago 18 tour (Scheff and Bailey's first concert with Chicago took place on Friday Oct 17, 1986 in Rockford, Illinois).

In 1988, the band replaced producer Foster with Ron Nevison and Chas Sanford, and they topped the charts again with the Diane Warren-composed single "Look Away", from the album Chicago 19. The album also yielded two more Top 10 hits, both with Bill Champlin singing solo lead for the first time and another Top 5 single that would officially be a release from the forthcoming greatest hits record. Chicago 19 was followed in short order by Greatest Hits 1982-1989, which included the aforementioned No. 5 hit "What Kind Of Man Would I Be?", a slightly remixed tune originally included on 19 and sung by Jason Scheff. The album's other Top Ten hit, "You're Not Alone", reached No. 10 in early 1989. During 1989, Chicago did a reprise joint concert tour with The Beach Boys (and would do so once again in 1997).

The band continued in the decade of the 1990s, even though their popularity began to decline. There was also another personnel change: founding member Danny Seraphine was fired by the band in 1990 and was replaced by drummer Tris Imboden, who first appeared on the 1991 album Twenty 1. Imboden was well known in the industry as the longtime drummer for Kenny Loggins. Chicago was recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on July 23, 1992.

In 1993, Chicago wrote and recorded their 22nd album, Stone of Sisyphus. Their record company at the time though, Reprise [Warner Music Group], was unhappy with the finished result, and thus the album was not released, although in succeeding years bootleg recordings of the album went on to surface worldwide, including over the Internet. It is also rumored that the label would not release the album as a result of being unable to reach a licensing agreement with band management over the back catalog. Selected tracks from the unreleased album were later officially released on four international compilation greatest hits CDs and the Rhino Records 2003 box set, and four were re-recorded for band members' solo albums. One track, "The Pull," was performed live during their 1993 appearance at the Greek Theatre (taped for PBS, and released on video in 1993). The album finally did see a release in June 2008, almost 15 years after its completion.

Starting on their 1994 tour, Chicago merged their unique sound with Big Band music for the 1995 album Night & Day Big Band, which consisted of covers of songs originally recorded by artists like Sarah Vaughan, Glenn Miller, and Duke Ellington (from whom the album mainly got its inspiration). Session guitarist Bruce Gaitsch handled the guitar work, and the album featured guest appearances by Paul Shaffer of "David Letterman" fame, and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry.

Keith Howland joined the band as guitarist in early 1995 to replace the departed Dawayne Bailey.

During a Los Angeles concert in 1997, Chicago teamed up with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra to perform a James Pankow/Dwight Mikelson orchestral arrangement of Pankow's rock epic "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon". Also during this year, the group released The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997, a compilation album which went gold and yielded the No. 1 Adult Contemporary hit "Here in My Heart."

In 1998, Chicago released Chicago XXV: The Christmas Album, which mixed traditional holiday favorites with an original Lee Loughnane composition. It went gold in the US. (The album was re-released with additional tracks in 2003, under the title What's It Gonna Be, Santa?.) The album featured Howland's first (and to date only) lead vocal on a Chicago record.

The band released a live album in 1999, Chicago XXVI, which included only two of the many songs Cetera helped to write while in the group. In 2000, the group had the opportunity to tell their story in an episode of VH1's Behind The Music. This included gems such as Pankow relating this story from the early 1980s: "One record company said, 'Man, if you get rid of the horn section, we'll sign ya...' That's like tellin' Elton John to get rid of the piano." The show, however, was not without its difficulties. The episode put more emphasis on the death of Terry Kath than on their entire career combined, and Peter Cetera refused to be interviewed or to allow the songs he wrote to be played on it (although the episode did include interviews he gave to others and songs he co-wrote).

[edit]Chicago since 2000

Despite the personnel changes over the years, the group is still active four decades after its founding. They are one of the few major rock groups that have never broken up or even taken an extended hiatus. As of June 2010, four of the six surviving founding members (major songwriters Lamm and Pankow, plus Loughnane and Parazaider) remain providing continuity, while Jason Scheff has been with the band 25 years, Tris Imboden 20 years, and Keith Howland 15 years.

As a new century turned, the band licensed their entire recorded output to Rhino Records (after years with Columbia Records and Warner Brothers). In 2002, Rhino released a two-disc compilation, The Very Best of Chicago: Only The Beginning, which spans the band's entire career. The compilation made the Top 40 and sold over 2 million copies in the US, and includes a new edit of "Make Me Smile"—which segued together the beginning ("Make Me Smile") and end ("Now More Than Ever") parts of the "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" suite like the original single did, but without its numerous cuts. Rhino has also begun releasing remastered versions of all of the band's Columbia albums, each including several bonus tracks. In 2003, they released a 5-CD / 1-DVD box set—which includes a new edit of "It Better End Soon" (minus the flute solo), a track they had done for USA for Africa: We Are the World ("Good for Nothing"), and 3 tracks from the still-unissuedStone of Sisyphus album (its title track, "All the Years", and "Bigger Than Elvis"–the latter being Scheff's tribute to his father, who had performed with Elvis Presley). In 2005, they released a compilation entitled Love Songs.

Chicago continues to appear in big and small venues worldwide. In 2004–2005 they toured jointly with the band Earth, Wind & Fire; a DVD recorded during that tour, Chicago/Earth, Wind & Fire - Live at the Greek Theatre, was certified platinum just two months after its release.

The group released Chicago XXX, on March 21, 2006, their first all-new studio album since Twenty 1. Two songs from this album, "Feel" and "Caroline", were performed live during Chicago's Fall 2005 tour; the studio recording of "Feel" debuted on WPLJ radio in New York in November 2005. "Feel" was the first single released. The album contains two versions of the song: one with horns and an orchestral tag that echoes "Love Me Tomorrow", and another non-brass version. "Love Will Come Back" was the second single released. While Chicago XXX did manage to debut at No. 41 on the US album chart (besting some other entries, including Chicago XIV, which hit US No. 71, and Twenty 1, which topped out at only US No. 66), it only remained in the top 200 for two weeks.

During March 2006, Chicago made a multi-week appearance at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, which was repeated in May of the same year. In July 2006, the band made a series of US appearances with Huey Lewis and the News. Highlights of that tour included Chicago's Bill Champlin performing with Huey Lewis and the News on a couple of songs, members of Huey Lewis and the News contributing to Chicago's percussion-laden song, "I'm a Man," and Huey Lewis singing the lead vocal on Chicago's "Colour My World."

At the end of 2006, the band played at CD USA's New Year's Eve party on Fremont Street in Las Vegas. Chicago toured the summer of 2007 with the bandAmerica. On October 2, 2007, Rhino Records released the two-disc The Best of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition, a new greatest hits compilation spanning their entire forty years, similar to The Very Best of: Only the Beginning, released four years earlier.

June 17, 2008 saw the official release of the Stone of Sisyphus album by Rhino Records, recorded in 1993 and originally slated for a March 1994 release until being shelved by Warner Records. The album contains eleven of the original twelve tracks (the raucous "Get on This", considered by many fans to be the best track on the album, was left off), plus four demo recordings.

In 2009 Chicago reunited with Earth, Wind & Fire for yet another joint tour.^[12]

In August 2009, Bill Champlin, who was with Chicago for 28 years, left the band to focus on his own music and solo career.^[13] His replacement is keyboardist Lou Pardini. Drew Hester also joined the band in 2010.^[14]

On December 12, 2009, Chicago performed nine songs live on stage at the Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, Connecticut as part of Brian Boitano's Skating Spectacular, taped for a New Year's Day NBC television broadcast. Boitano and other skaters performed live on the ice to the band's music.

In 2010, Chicago toured with the Doobie Brothers with a performance in the City of Chicago that became a video for the HDNet cable channel, with the Doobies joining Chicago for two encore tunes. The band also appeared on the American Idol 9th season finale.^[15]

On July the 24th, 2011, the band performed at Red Rocks in Colorado, accompanied by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. This was the first time Chicago played a full-length symphonic concert.

The band re-teamed with producer Phil Ramone (who produced Hot Streets and Chicago 13) to record a new Christmas album. Chicago XXXIII: O Christmas Threewas released in October 2011. In the meantime, Rhino released Chicago XXXIV: Live in '75, a concert from 1975.

Ray Charles Hot Video,Playlist, And Photos

2012-01-26T13:53:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusingrhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records.^[1]^[2]^[3] He also helped racially integrate country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his Modern Sounds albums.^[4]^[5]^[6] While with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-Americanmusicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company.^[2] Frank Sinatra called Charles “the only true genius in show business.”

The influences upon his music were mainly jazz, blues, rhythm and blues and country artists of the day such asArt Tatum, Nat King Cole, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, Louis Armstrong. His playing reflected influences fromcountry blues and barrelhouse, and stride piano styles.

Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on their list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2004,^[7] and number two on their November 2008 list of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".^[8] In honoring Charles, Billy Joel noted: "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. I don't know if Ray was the architect of rock & roll, but he was certainly the first guy to do a lot of things . . . Who the hell ever put so many styles together and made it work?"^[9]

Ray Charles
Ray Charles in 1990
Background information
Birth name	Ray Charles Robinson
Born	September 23, 1930 Albany, Georgia, United States
Origin	Greenville, Florida, United States
Died	June 10, 2004 (aged 73) Beverly Hills, California, United States
Genres	Rhythm and blues, soul, blues, rock and roll, jazz, country, pop, gospel
Occupations	Composer, musician, arranger,bandleader
Instruments	Vocals, piano, keyboards, alto saxophone, trombone
Years active	1947–2004
Labels	Atlantic, ABC, Warner Bros., Swing Time, Concord, Columbia, Flashback
Associated acts	The Raelettes, Quincy Jones, Betty Carter, Marvin Gaye, James Brown,Little Richard
Website	Official website

[hide]

Early life: 1930–1945

Ray Charles Robinson was the son of Aretha Williams, a sharecropper, and Bailey Robinson, a railroad repair man, mechanic and handyman.^[10] Aretha Williams was a devout Christian and the family attended the New Shiloh Baptist Church.^[11] When Ray was an infant, his family moved from Albany, Georgia, where he was born, to the poor black community on the western side of Greenville, Florida. In his early years, Charles showed a curiosity for mechanical things and he often watched the neighborhood men working on their cars and farm machinery. His musical curiosity was sparked at Mr. Wiley Pit's Red Wing Cafe when Pit played boogie woogie on an old upright piano. Pit would care for George, Ray's brother, so as to take the burden off Williams. However, George drowned in the Williams' bath tub when he was four years old.^{[citation needed]} After witnessing the death of his brother, Ray would feel an overwhelming sense of guilt later on in life.

Charles started to lose his sight at the age of five. He went completely blind by the age of seven, apparently due to glaucoma.^[12]^[13] He attended school at theFlorida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine from 1937 to 1945,^[14] where he developed his musical talent.^[12] During this time he performed on WFOYradio in St. Augustine. His father died when he was 10 and his mother died five years after.

In school, Charles was taught only classical music, but he wanted to play the jazz and blues he heard on the family radio.^[14] While at school, he became the school's premier musician. On Fridays, the South Campus Literary Society held assemblies where Charles would play piano and sing popular songs. On Halloween and Washington's birthday, the Colored Department of the school had socials where Charles would play. It was here he established "RC Robinson and the Shop Boys" and sang his own arrangement of "Jingle Bell Boogie."^[15] He spent his first Christmas at the school, but later the staff pitched in so that Charles could return to Greenville, as he did each summer.

Henry and Alice Johnson, who owned a store not unlike Mr. Pit's store in Greenville, moved to the Frenchtown section of Tallahassee, just west of Greenville; and they, as well as Freddy and Margaret Bryant, took Charles in. He worked the register in the Bryants' store under the direction of Lucille Bryant, their daughter. It's said he loved Tallahassee and often used the drug store delivery boy's motorbike to run up and down hills using the exhaust sound of a friend's bike to guide him. Charles found Tallahassee musically exciting too and sat in with the Florida A&M University student band. He played with the Adderley brothers, Nat andCannonball, and began playing gigs with Lawyer Smith and his Band in 1943 at the Red Bird Club and DeLuxe Clubs in Frenchtown and roadhouse theatres around Tallahassee, as well as the Governor's Ball.^[16]

[edit]Career

[edit]Early career: 1945–1952

After his mother died in 1945, Charles was 15 years old and didn't return to school. He lived in Jacksonville with a couple who were friends of his mother. For over a year, he played the piano for bands at the Ritz Theatre in LaVilla, earning $4 a night. Then he moved to Orlando, and later Tampa, where he played with a southernband called The Florida Playboys. This is where he began his habit of always wearing sunglasses, made by designer Billy Stickles.^[17]

Charles had always played for other people, but he wanted his own band. He decided to leave Florida for a large city, but Chicago and New York City were too big. After asking a friend to look in a map and note the city in the United States that was farthest from Florida, he moved to Seattle in 1947^[12] (where he first met and befriended a 14 year old Quincy Jones)^[18]^[19] and soon started recording, first for the Down Beat label as the Maxin Trio with guitarist G.D. McKee and bassist Milton Garrett, achieving his first hit with "Confession Blues" in 1949. The song soared to No. 2 on the R&B charts. He joined Swing Time Records and under his own name ("Ray Charles" to avoid being confused with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson)^[10] recorded two more R&B hits, "Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand" (No. 5) in 1951 and "Kissa Me Baby" (No. 8) in 1952. The following year, Swing Time folded and Ahmet Ertegün signed him to Atlantic Records.^[12]

[edit]Atlantic Records: 1953–1959

Almost immediately after signing with Atlantic, Charles scored his first hit single. "Mess Around" was an R&B hit in 1953. "It Should Have Been Me" and "Don't You Know" both made the charts in 1954, but "I Got a Woman" (composed with band mate Renald Richard)^[20] brought him to national prominence.

The song reached the top of Billboard's R&B singles chart in 1955 and from there until 1959 he would have a series of R&B successes including "A Fool For You" (No. 1), "This Little Girl of Mine", "Lonely Avenue", "Mary Ann", "Drown in My Own Tears" (No. 1) and the No. 5 hit "The Night Time (Is the Right Time)", which were compiled on his Atlantic releases Hallelujah, I Love Her So, Yes Indeed!, and The Genius Sings the Blues.^{[citation needed]}

During this time of transition, he recruited a young girl group from Philadelphia, The Cookies, as his background singing group, recording with them in New York and changing their name to the Raelettes in the process.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Crossover success: 1959–1967

Charles in 1971. Photo: Heinrich Klaffs.

After his Atlantic Records contract had ended, Ray Charles signed with ABC-Paramount Records in November 1959, obtaining a much more liberal contract than other artists had at the time.^[21] Following his commercial and pop crossoverbreakthrough with the complex hit single "What'd I Say" earlier that year, ABC offered Charles a $ 50,000 annual advance, higher royalties than previously offered and eventual ownership of his masters — a very valuable and lucrative deal at the time.^[22] Composed by Charles himself, the single furthered Charles's mainstream appeal, while becoming a Top 10 pop hit and selling a million copies in the United States, despite the ban placed on the record by some radio stations, in response to the song's sexually-suggestive lyrics.^[23] However, by the time of the release of the instrumental jazz LP Genius + Soul = Jazz (1960) for ABC's subsidiary label Impulse!, Charles had virtually given up on writing original material and had begun to follow his eclectic impulses as an interpreter.^[23]

With his first hit single for ABC-Paramount, Charles received national acclaim and a Grammy Award for the Sid Feller-produced "Georgia on My Mind", originally written by composers Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael, released as a single by Charles in 1960.^[23]^[24] The song served as Charles's first work with Feller, who arranged and conducted the recording. Charles also earned another Grammy for the follow-up "Hit the Road Jack", written by R&B singer Percy Mayfield.^[25] By late 1961, Charles had expanded his small road ensemble to a full-scale big band, partly as a response to increasing royalties and touring fees, becoming one of the few black artists to crossover into mainstream pop with such a level of creative control.^[23]^[26] This success, however, came to a momentary halt in November 1961, as a police search of Charles's hotel room in Indianapolis, Indiana during a concert tour led to the discovery of heroin in his medicine cabinet. The case was eventually dropped, as the search lacked a proper warrant by the police, and Charles soon returned his focus on music and recording.^[26]

The 1962 album, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music and its sequel Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vol. 2, helped to bring country into the mainstream of music. His version of the Don Gibson song, I Can't Stop Loving You topped the Pop chart for five weeks and stayed at No. 1 R&B for ten weeks in 1962. It also gave him his only number one record in the UK. In 1962, he founded his own record label, Tangerine Records which ABC-Paramount promoted and distributed.^[27]^[28] He also had major pop hits in 1963 with "Busted" (US No. 4) and Take These Chains From My Heart (US No. 8), and a Top 20 hit four years later, in 1967, with "Here We Go Again" (US No. 15) (which would be a duet with Norah Jones in 2004).^[29]

[edit]Later years: 1965-2004

In 1965, Ray Charles was arrested for possession of heroin, a drug to which he had been addicted for nearly 20 years.^[10] It was his third arrest for the offense, but he avoided jail time after kicking the habit in a clinic in Los Angeles. He spent a year on parole in 1966, when his single "Crying Time" reached No. 6 on the charts.

During the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Charles's releases were hit-or-miss,^[12] with some big hits and critically acclaimed work. His version of "Georgia On My Mind" was proclaimed the state song of Georgia on April 24, 1979, and he performed it on the floor of the state legislature.^[12] He also had success with his unique version of "America the Beautiful".

In November 1977 he appeared as the host of NBC's Saturday Night Live.^[30] In the 1980s a number of other events increased Charles's recognition among young audiences. He made a cameo appearance in the popular 1980 film The Blues Brothers. In 1985, "The Right Time" was featured in the episode "Happy Anniversary" of The Cosby Show on NBC. The next year, he sang America The Beautiful at Wrestlemania 2. In a Pepsi Cola commercial of the early 1990s – composed byKenny Ascher, Joseph C. Caro, and Helary Jay Lipsitz^[31] – Charles popularized the catchphrase "You Got the Right One, Baby!" and he was featured in the recording of "We Are the World" for USA for Africa.

After having supported Martin Luther King, Jr. and for the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, Charles courted controversy when he toured South Africa in 1981,^[12] during an international boycott of the country because of its apartheid policy.

Charles with President Ronald Reagan and First LadyNancy Reagan in 1984.

In 1989, Charles recorded a cover version of the Japanese band Southern All Stars' song "Itoshi no Ellie" as "Ellie My Love" for a Suntory TV advertisement, reaching No. 3 on Japan's Oricon chart.^[32] Eventually, it sold more than 400,000 copies, and became that year's best-selling single performed by a Western artist for the Japanese music market.^{[citation needed]}

Charles also appeared at two Presidential inaugurations in his lifetime. In 1985, he performed for Ronald Reagan's second inauguration, and in 1993 for Bill Clinton's first.^[33]

In the late 1980s/early 1990s, Charles made appearances on the Super Dave Osbourne TV show, where he performed and appeared in a few vignettes where he was somehow driving a car, often as Super Dave's chauffeur. At the height of his newfound fame in the early nineties, Charles did guest vocals for several projects. He also appeared (with Chaka Khan) on long time friend Quincy Jones' hit "I'll Be Good to You" in 1990, from Jones's album Back on the Block. Following Jim Henson's death in 1990, Ray Charles appeared in the one-hour CBS tribute, The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson. He gave a short speech about Henson, stating that he "took a simple song and a piece of felt and turned it into a moment of great power". Charles was referring to the song "It's Not Easy Being Green", which he later performed with the rest of the Muppet cast in a tribute to Henson's legacy.^{[citation needed]}

During the sixth season of Designing Women, Charles sang "Georgia on My Mind", instead of the song being rendered instrumentally by other musicians as in the previous five seasons. He also appeared in 4 episodes of the popular TV comedy The Nanny in Seasons 4 & 5 (1997 & 1998) as 'Sammy', in one episode singing "My Yiddish Mamma" to December romance and later fiancee of character Gramma Yetta, played by veteran actress Ann Guilbert.

From 2001-2002, Charles appeared in commercials for the New Jersey Lottery to promote its "For every dream, there's a jackpot" campaign.

In 2003, Ray Charles headlined the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C. where the President, First Lady, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Riceattended. He also presented one of his greatest admirers, Van Morrison, with his award upon being inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the two sang Morrison's song "Crazy Love". This performance appears on Morrison's 2007 album, The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3.

In 2003 Charles performed "Georgia On My Mind" and "America the Beautiful" at a televised annual electronic media journalist banquet held in Washington, D.C., at what may have been his final performance in public. His final public appearance came on April 30, 2004, at the dedication of his music studio as a historic landmarkin the city of Los Angeles.^[12]

[edit]Personal life

[edit]Family

Charles was married twice and fathered 12 children with nine different women.^[34]^[35] His first marriage to Eileen Williams was brief: July 31, 1951 to 1952. He had three children from his second marriage, to Della Beatrice Howard Robinson from April 5, 1955 to 1977. His long term girlfriend and partner at the time of his death was Norma Pinella.

A list of his children:

Born ~ 1950: Evelyn Robinson (to Louise Mitchell)
Born ~ 1955: Ray Charles Robinson, Jr. (to Della Robinson)
Born ~ 1958: David Robinson (to Della Robinson)
Born ~ 1959: Charles Wayne Robinson (to Margie Hendricks)
Born ~ 1960: Reverend Robert Robinson (to Della Robinson)
Born ~ 1961: Raenee Robinson (to Mae Mosely Lyles)
Born ~ 1963: Sheila Raye Charles Robinson (to Sandra Jean Betts)^[36]
Born ~ 1966: Alicia Robinson (unknown)
Born ~ 1968: Alexandra Robinson (to Chantal Bertrand)
Born ~ 1977: Vincent Robinson (to Arlette Kotchounian)
Born ~ 1978: Robyn Robinson (to Gloria Moffett)
Born ~ 1987: Ryan Corey Robinson (to Mary Anne den Bok)

Charles gave 10 of his 12 children checks for one million USD in December 2002 at a family luncheon, while the other two could not make it.^[37]

[edit]Substance abuse and legal issues

On November 14, 1961, Charles was arrested on a narcotics charge in an Indiana hotel room, where he waited to perform. The detectives seized heroin, marijuana, and other items. Charles, then 31, stated that he had been a drug addict since the age of 16. While the case was dismissed because of the manner in which the evidence was obtained,^[38] Charles's situation did not improve until a few years later. Individuals such as Quincy Jones and Reverend Henry Griffin felt that those around Charles were responsible for his drug use.

By 1964 Charles's drug addiction caught up with him and he was arrested for possession of marijuana and heroin. Following a self-imposed stay^[38] at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California, Charles received five years' probation. Charles responded to the saga of his drug use and reform with the songs "I Don't Need No Doctor", "Let's Go Get Stoned", and the release of his first album since having kicked his heroin addiction in 1966, Crying Time.^[39]^[40]

[edit]Other interests

Charles played chess using a special board with holes for the pieces and raised squares.^[41] Charles referred to Willie Nelson as "my chess partner" in a 1991 concert.^[42] In 2002, he played and lost to American Grandmaster and former U.S. Champion Larry Evans.^[43]

[edit]Death

Charles died on June 10, 2004 at 11:35 a.m. of liver disease at his home in Beverly Hills, California, surrounded by family and friends.^[44]^[45] He was 73 years old. His body was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery.

Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Blvd.

His final album, Genius Loves Company, released two months after his death, consists of duets with various admirers and contemporaries: B.B. King, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, James Taylor, Gladys Knight, Michael McDonald, Natalie Cole, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, and Johnny Mathis. The album won eight Grammy Awards, including five for Ray Charles for Best Pop Vocal Album, Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Here We Go Again" with Norah Jones, and Best Gospel Performance for "Heaven Help Us All" with Gladys Knight; he also received nods for his duets with Elton John and B.B. King. The album included a version of Harold Arlen's "Over the Rainbow", sung as a duet by Charles and Johnny Mathis, which recording was later played at his memorial service.^[46]

Two more posthumous albums, Genius & Friends (2005) and Ray Sings, Basie Swings (2006), were released. Genius & Friends consisted of duets recorded from 1997 to 2005 with his choice of artists. Ray Sings, Basie Swings consists of archived vocals of Ray Charles from live mid-1970s performances added to new instrumental tracks specially recorded by the contemporary Count Basie Orchestra and other musicians. Charles's vocals recorded from the concert mixing board were added to new accompaniments to create a "fantasy concert" recording. Gregg Field, who had performed as a drummer with both Charles and Basie, produced the album.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Legacy

Statue by Andy Davis in Ray Charles Plaza inAlbany, Georgia

Charles possessed one of the most recognizable voices in American music. In the words of musicologist Henry Pleasants:

Sinatra, and Bing Crosby before him, had been masters of words. Ray Charles is a master of sounds. His records disclose an extraordinary assortment of slurs, glides, turns, shrieks, wails, breaks, shouts, screams and hollers, all wonderfully controlled, disciplined by inspired musicianship, and harnessed to ingenious subtleties of harmony, dynamics and rhythm... It is either the singing of a man whose vocabulary is inadequate to express what is in his heart and mind or of one whose feelings are too intense for satisfactory verbal or conventionally melodic articulation. He can’t tell it to you. He can’t even sing it to you. He has to cry out to you, or shout to you, in tones eloquent of despair — or exaltation. The voice alone, with little assistance from the text or the notated music, conveys the message.

Ray Charles is usually described as a baritone, and his speaking voice would suggest as much, as would the difficulty he experiences in reaching and sustaining the baritone's high E and F in a popular ballad. But the voice undergoes some sort of transfiguration under stress, and in music of gospel or blues character he can and does sing for measures on end in the high tenor range of A, B flat, B, C and ev in full voice, sometimes in an ecstatic head voice, sometimes in falsetto. In falsetto he continues up to E and F above high C. On one extraordinary record, "I’m Going Down to the River’ . . . he hits an incredible B flat . . . . giving him an overall range, including the falsetto extension, of at least three octaves.^[47]

In 1979, Charles was one of the first of the Georgia State Music Hall of Fame to be recognized as a musician born in the state.^[48] Ray's version of "Georgia On My Mind" was made the official state song for Georgia.^[49] In 1981, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was one of the first inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural ceremony in 1986.^[50] He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986.^[51]

In 1987, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1991, he was inducted to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. In 1993, he was awarded theNational Medal of Arts.^[52] In 1998 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize together with Ravi Shankar in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2004 he was inducted to the Jazz Hall of Fame, and inducted to the National Black Sports & Entertainment Hall of Fame.^[53] The Grammy Awards of 2005 were dedicated to Charles.

On December 7, 2007, Ray Charles Plaza was opened in Albany, Georgia, with a revolving, lighted bronze sculpture of Charles seated at a piano. Later that month, on December 26, 2007, Ray Charles was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. He was also presented with the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, during the 1991 UCLA Spring Sing.^[54]

In 2003, Charles was awarded an honorary degree by Dillard University. Upon his death, he endowed a professorship of African-American culinary history at the school, which is the first such chair in the nation.^[55] A $20 million performing arts center at Morehouse College was named after Charles and was dedicated in September 2010.^[56]

The biopic Ray, an October 2004 film portrays his life and career between 1930 and 1969 and stars Jamie Foxx as Charles. Foxx won the 2005 Academy Award forBest Actor for the role. The movie is the all-time number one biopic per screen average, opening on 2006 screens and making 20 million dollars.^[57]

The RPM International building is located on the corner of Westmorland Blvd. and Washington Blvd., which is also dedicated as the "Ray Charles Square".

[edit]Discography

Main article: Ray Charles discography

[edit]Filmography

Swingin' Along (1961)
Ballad in Blue (1964)
The Big T.N.T. Show (1966) (documentary)
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Who's The Boss (himself) 1987
Limit Up (1989)
Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones (1990) (documentary)
Love Affair (1994)
Spy Hard (1996)
The Nanny (1999) as Sammy
The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave (2000)
Blue's Big Musical Movie (2000)
Ray (2004)