Ray Charles (1930 - 2004)
 Born Sept. 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia, in what was then the segregated South, Charles overcame poverty, blindness (possibly due to glaucoma, possibly not--Charles said he was never convinced of the diagnosis) and family tragedy (his parents and a brother all died before Ray was 15) to become a jukebox star in 1959 with his first number-one hit, "Georgia on My Mind".
His pop hits spanned the 1950s to the 1970s--from 1957´s "Swanee River Rock" to 1971´s "Booty Butt," with the intervening years including everything from a 1968 cover of "Eleanor Rigby" to a cool 1961 take on "One Mint Julep."
Sound-wise, Charles spanned jazz, R&B, gospel and country - he even charted there on a duet with Willie Nelson ("Seven Spanish Angels"). Above all, though, Charles was known as "The Genius of Soul."
Charles, who died of liver disease June 10,2004 at the age of 73, hit the road for his final journey with the help of Clint Eastwood, Cicely Tyson, B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman, country icons Glen Campbell and Willie Nelson, and jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.
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