The career of the vocalist Jimmy Ellis (...)
was ultimately defined by one song.
The band he fronted, the Trammps, had other US and UK hits in the era
when the lushly orchestrated soul music released on the Philadelphia
International label
was gradually mutating into disco, but they were all overshadowed by Disco
Inferno.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/mar/09/jimmy-ellis
Etta James Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins) 1938-2012
Etta James's powerful, versatile and emotionally direct voice
could enliven the raunchiest blues as well as the subtlest love songs,
most indelibly in her signature hit, “At Last”
The bandleader Johnny Otis (...)
was one of the first white American musicians to cross the racial divide,
aligning himself with the black community as a teenager
and from then on regarding himself – and being treated as – a black man.
He attracted many nicknames – among them the Duke Ellington of Watts,
the Reverend Hand Jive and the Godfather of Rhythm and Blues –
and distinguished himself as a television host, political activist, preacher,
cartoonist, painter,
chef, record producer, talent scout, DJ, sculptor, writer and organic farmer.
singer, instrumentalist and songwriter
whose mastery of genres from doo-wop to Latin soul to funk,
and instruments including saxophone and bongos earned him the title Everything
Man
a versatile singer and songwriter who had a handful of hits in
various pop genres
but who was probably best known for his enduring 1973 soul anthem, “Drift Away,”
a wistful paean to all songwriters and their songs
rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter
who worked with Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix early in their careers
and was involved in a longstanding dispute
over songwriting credit for the song
“Time Is on My Side”
Viola Wills (Viola Mae Wilkerson), singer 1940-2009
While Viola Wills's best-known hit, Gonna Get Along Without
You Now in 1979,
was the one that made her name, it was also the track that cast her as a
stereotype.
Thenceforth she became the "disco diva",
with an enthusiastic gay following,
but the term belied her musical range,
which encompassed soul, jazz and gospel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/20/viola-wills-obituary
Randy Wood started out stocking records in a nook of his
electrical appliance store
before going on to found Dot Records, a label that found success in the 1950s
recording white artists like Pat Boone singing black artists’ rhythm-and-blues
songs
Filed at 1:14 a.m. EST on December 27, 2010
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Teena Marie, the "Ivory Queen of Soul" who developed a
lasting legacy with her silky soul pipes and with hits like "Lovergirl,"
''Square Biz," and "Fire and Desire" with mentor Rick James, died on Sunday. She
was 54.
A statement from Pasadena police said the death appeared to be from natural
causes. The police and fire department were called to her home after family
members found her unresponsive.
In an interview with The Associated Press last year, Teena Marie said she had
successfully battled an addiction to prescription drugs; she went on tour last
year to support her last album, "Congo Square."
Marie certainly wasn't the first white act to sing soul music, but she was
arguably among the most gifted and respected, and was thoroughly embraced by the
black audience.
Even before she started her musical career, she had a strong bond with the black
community, which she credited to her godmother. She gravitated to soul music and
in her youth decided to make it her career.
Marie made her debut on the legendary Motown label back in 1979, becoming one of
the very few white acts to break the race barrier of the groundbreaking
black-owned record label that had been a haven for black artists like Stevie
Wonder, the Jackson Five, the Supremes and Marvin Gaye.
Marie was the protege of the masterful funk wizard James, with whom she would
have long, turbulent but musically magical relationship.
The cover of her debut album, "Wild and Peaceful," did not feature her image,
with Motown apparently fearing black audiences might not buy it if they found
out the songstress with the dynamic, gospel-inflected voice was white.
But Marie notched her first hit, "I'm A Sucker for Your Love," and was on her
way to becoming one of R&B's most revered queens. During her tenure with Motown,
the singer-songwriter and musician produced passionate love songs and funk jam
songs like "Need Your Lovin'," ''Behind the Groove."
Marie's voice was the main draw of her music: Pitch-perfect, piercing in its
clarity and wrought with emotion, whether it was drawing from the highs of
romance or the mournful moments of a love lost. But her songs, most of which she
had a hand in writing, were the other major component of her success.
Tunes like "Cassanova Brown" ''Portuguese Love" and "Deja Vu (I've Been Here
Before)" featured more than typical platitudes on love and life, but complex
thoughts with rich lyricism.
And "Fire and Desire," a duet with Rick James that featured the former couple
musing about their past love, was considered a musical masterpiece and a staple
of the romance block on radio stations across the country.
Marie left Motown in 1982 and her split became historic: She sued the label and
the legal battle led to a law preventing record labels from holding an artist
without releasing any of their music.
She went to Epic in the 1980s and had hits like "Lovergirl" and "Ooo La La La"
but her lasting musical legacy would be her Motown years.
Still, she continued to record music and perform. In 2004 and 2006 she put out
two well-received albums on the traditional rap label Cash Money Records, "La
Dona" and "Sapphire."
In 2008, she talked about her excitement of being honored by the R&B Foundation.
"All in all, it's been a wonderful, wonderful ride," she told The Associated
Press at the time. "I don't plan on stopping anytime soon."
(This version CORRECTS Updates with police report, removes attribution to
publicist.
Corrects that 'Ooo La La La' was during Epic instead of Motown
years.)
Garry Shider, a Pillar of Funk-Rock, Is Dead at 56
June 20, 2010
The New York Times
By LARRY ROHTER
Garry Shider, the funk-rock guitarist and singer whose spacey but soulful and
rhythmically powerful playing provided one of the pillars of the influential
Parliament-Funkadelic sound of the 1970s and propelled him into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame, died on Wednesday at his home in Upper Marlboro, Md. He was
56.
The cause was brain and lung cancer, said his son Garrett.
Onstage, Mr. Shider, known as Starchild or Diaperman (because of his fondness
for performing dressed only in a loincloth), cut an outlandish figure,
emphasized by his tie-dyed dreadlocks. But he delivered incendiary solos and
impressively funky rhythm work on his guitar, most notably on the jam showpiece
“Cosmic Slop.” With George Clinton, the founder of Parliament and Funkadelic, he
wrote some of the groups’ signature songs, including “One Nation Under a Groove”
and “Atomic Dog.”
Born in Plainfield, N.J., on July 24, 1953, Mr. Shider began performing as a
child, singing and playing in a local family-based gospel group, the
Shiderettes, and providing support for nationally known acts like Shirley Caesar
and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. It was at this time that he met Mr. Clinton, who
owned a barbershop near the church Mr. Shider’s family attended and led a
doo-wop-inspired vocal group called the Parliaments, which would later evolve
into the intertwined groups Parliament and Funkadelic, also known collectively
as P-Funk.
As a teenager, Mr. Shider played in a band called U.S., short for United Soul,
some of whose recordings were produced by Mr. Clinton and the keyboardist Bernie
Worrell, later to be another important member of the P-Funk family. That led to
his being asked to play on Parliament and Funkadelic recordings in the early
1970s and an invitation shortly afterward to join the bands.
Along with his fellow guitarists Eddie Hazel and Michael Hampton, Mr. Shider,
his playing by now also incorporating the influences of Jimi Hendrix and Sly
Stone, gave both punch and funk to hit P-Funk albums including “Standing on the
Verge of Getting It On” and “Hardcore Jollies” and live performances throughout
the remainder of the decade. He also played with the offshoot bands of other
P-Funk members, especially those of Mr. Hazel and the bassist Bootsy Collins.
After Parliament-Funkadelic dissolved in the early 1980s, Mr. Shider continued
his association with Mr. Clinton and served at times as musical director of the
P-Funk All-Stars, a successor band. He also performed with other P-Funk members
in the movies “PCU” and “The Night Before,” playing songs he helped write;
appeared on records like the Black Crowes’ “Three Snakes and One Charm”; and had
his earlier work sampled on hit CDs by rap performers like Dr. Dre, OutKast and
Digital Underground. In 1997, he and the other members of Parliament-Funkadelic
were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Benefit concerts to help pay Mr. Shider’s medical bills have been scheduled for
July 10 in Plainfield and July 11 in Manhattan.
In addition to his sons, Garrett and Marshall, Mr. Shider is survived by his
wife, the singer and songwriter Linda Shider.
Tuesday 12 August 2008
The Guardian
Adam Sweeting
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk at 00.01 BST on Tuesday 12
August 2008.
It appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday 12 August 2008 on p30 of the Obituaries
section.
It was last updated at 10.11 BST on Tuesday 12 August 2008.
Isaac Hayes, who has died aged 65, earned massive international acclaim and a
niche in the record books from writing the Oscar-winning theme for the movie
Shaft in 1971. But that was only the tip of the iceberg of Hayes's talents,
which comprised skills as a multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and
vocalist, as well as composer, songwriter and actor. The musical innovations he
pioneered throughout his career made him an influential figure in the
development of soul and disco, and he was later dubbed the "Original Rapper". He
was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.
Born in Covington, Tennessee, Hayes was raised by his sharecropper grandparents
in their shack after his mother had died and his father walked out. When he
moved with his grandparents to Memphis, he took jobs as a bus boy and dishwasher
to help boost the household's dire finances, but it was a sign of things to come
when he won a talent show singing the Nat King Cole hit Looking Back. "Career
change!" recalled Hayes, whose only previous musical experience was singing in
church as a boy. "I started pursuing music big time."
He began finding work as a musician in local clubs and formed several shortlived
groups, including Sir Isaac and the Doo-Dads and Calvin Valentine and the Swing
Cats. Then he signed on as pianist with saxophonist Floyd Newman, who was also a
staff musician for the new Memphis label, Stax. This brought Hayes an invitation
to stand in on keyboards for a temporarily absent Booker T Jones, from the Stax
house band Booker T & the MGs, and he played his first paid sessions with Otis
Redding in early 1964.
Hayes had become a familiar face around Stax when the writer and producer David
Porter suggested they collaborate as songwriters. It was an inspired move, and
soon the Porter/Hayes duo (alias the Soul Children) were banging out such
classics as Soul Man, When Something Is Wrong With My Baby and Hold On, I'm
Coming for Sam & Dave, and the sublime B-A-B-Y for Carla Thomas. Hayes's work at
Stax helped to create the Memphis Sound, which influenced the Beatles, the
Rolling Stones and almost everybody who mattered in pop.
The assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis on April 4 1968 was
especially shattering for Hayes, who had joined King's civil rights marches and
was due to meet him on the day of his death. "I thought 'I can't do a thing
about it, so let me become successful and powerful enough where I can have a
voice to make a difference.' " His first solo album, Presenting Isaac Hayes, was
released that year. It sold insignificantly, but his 1969 follow-up, Hot
Buttered Soul, sold 1m copies and represented a bold artistic advance. It
contained only four tracks, and its complex symphonic arrangements and verbal
monologues pointed the way ahead to 1970s concept albums by Marvin Gaye, Barry
White and Stevie Wonder. His expanded versions of Burt Bacharach's Walk on By
and Jimmy Webb's By the Time I Get to Phoenix still sound revolutionary.
Hayes's Shaft moment duly arrived in 1971, and his double-album soundtrack made
him the first African-American to win an Academy award. The Theme from Shaft,
with its tense beat, edgy wah-wah guitars and effortlessly hip monologue, became
a Grammy-winning chart-topper, made No 4 in the UK and made Hayes a global star.
He was the godfather of bling in his gold chains and interplanetary costumes, as
well as one of the most imitated musicians on the planet. He was showered with
film and television work, scoring the TV show The Men and the movies Tough Guys
and Truck Turner (both of which also starred Hayes, who played a bartender in
Shaft). His Truck Turner score would be used by Quentin Tarantino in his Kill
Bill movies. In 1974 he debuted in the recurring role of Jim Rockford's fellow
ex-con in The Rockford Files.
Hayes released a second successful double-album in 1971, Black Moses, and his US
chart-topping Live at the Sahara Tahoe made it three. His 1973 album Joy
included the hit I Love You That's All, later sampled by numerous artists,
including Massive Attack and Eric B & Rakim.
In 1975, following a struggle with Stax over royalties, Hayes set up his own Hot
Buttered Soul (HBS) label, under the wing of ABC. He scored a big hit with the
disco-orientated Chocolate Chip, though follow-ups Disco Connection and
Groove-A-Thon proved less commercial. By 1976 he somehow found himself $6m in
debt, and was mortified to see his solid gold Cadillac Eldorado go to the tax
authorities.
However, he lost no time in staging a comeback, teaming up with Dionne Warwick
for the 1977 double-LP A Man and a Woman, and co-writing Warwick's US Top 20
hit, Déjà Vu. Hayes signed a solo deal with Polydor and notched hit singles with
Zeke the Freak, Don't Let Go and Do You Wanna Make Love. The last of these was
from his final 70s album, a duet with Millie Jackson called Royal Rappin's
(1979).
The 1980s proved unrewarding musically, but Hayes compensated by stepping up his
acting work. He played the villain in John Carpenter's Escape from New York,
appeared in action romps Counterforce and Dead Aim, and adorned the small screen
in The A-Team, Hunter and Miami Vice. In 1988, he appeared in the Keenen Ivory
Wayans comedy I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka, a satire of Shaft-style blaxploitation
films.
Numerous film parts followed through the 1990s. Hayes now signed a record deal
with Columbia. His album U-Turn contained Ike's Rap, featuring a powerful
anti-crack message ("Don't be a resident of crack city"). He also agreed to
lecture in colleges in prisons about the perils of drug addiction.
In 1992, Hayes explored his humanitarian bent further when he and Warwick
accepted an invitation to visit the Cape coast and the Elmina slave castles of
Ghana. Much moved, Hayes committed himself to raising funds to improve social
and educational standards in Ghana. He was rewarded by being made a Ghanaian
king. He subsequently founded the Isaac Hayes Foundation, to promote literacy,
musical and nutritional education around the world. He was an enthusiastic chef
who owned restaurants in Memphis and Chicago, and often performed at both.
In 1997, his culinary leanings led to his being cast as the voice of Chef in the
animated TV show South Park. Hayes described the character as "a person that
speaks his mind; he's sensitive enough to care for children ... And he loves the
ladies". Chocolate Salty Balls (PS I Love You), a song performed by Chef, was
his first UK chart-topper. However, he left the series acrimoniously, apparently
offended by an episode that satirised Scientology, which he espoused and
promoted. South Park's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, argued that Hayes
had not objected to other religions being lampooned, but wanted to apply
different standards to Scientology.
Hayes suffered a stroke in 2006, and appeared confused and disorientated on a TV
talk show earlier this year. Last Sunday, he was found unconscious by his wife
Adjowa at his home near Memphis, apparently having collapsed while using a
treadmill. He was pronounced dead at Memphis's Baptist Memorial hospital, and
was thought to have suffered a simultaneous stroke and heart attack. Adjowa was
his fourth wife. He fathered 12 children.
· Isaac Hayes, musician, born August 20 1942; died August 10 2008
December 13, 2007
The New York Times
By JON PARELES
Ike Turner, the R&B musician, songwriter, bandleader, producer, talent scout
and ex-husband of Tina Turner, died on Wednesday at his home in San Marcos,
Calif., a San Diego suburb. He was 76.
His death was announced by Jeanette Bazzell Turner, who married Mr. Turner in
1995. She gave no cause of death, but said he had had emphysema.
Mr. Turner was best known for discovering Anna Mae Bullock, a teenage singer
from Nutbush, Tenn., whom he renamed Tina Turner. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue
made a string of hits in the 1960s before the Turners broke up in 1975.
Tina Turner described the relationship as abusive in her autobiography, “I,
Tina,” which was adapted for the 1993 film “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” and
made Mr. Turner’s name synonymous with domestic abuse.
“I got a temper,” he admitted in 1999 in his autobiography, “Takin’ Back My
Name: The Confessions of Ike Turner.” But he maintained that the film had
“overstated” it.
Mr. Turner’s career extended back to the 1950s, when he played with pioneering
Mississippi Delta bluesmen and helped shape early rock ’n’ roll as well as soul
and rhythm-and-blues. “Rocket 88,” a song his band released in 1951 under the
name Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, is regularly cited as a contender for
the first rock-’n’-roll record for its beat, its distorted guitar and its
honking saxophone.
Ike and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.
Ike Turner, whose full name is variously given as Izear Luster Turner Jr. and
Ike Wister Turner, was born in Clarksdale, Miss., and was brought up there by
his mother after his father, a minister, was beaten to death by a white mob.
As a child Ike spent time at the local radio station, WROX, a hub for Delta
blues performances. According to Mr. Turner’s autobiography, the D.J.s taught
him how to cue up and segue records, sometimes leaving him alone on the air when
he was 8 years old.
He grew up around Delta musicians like the bluesman Robert Nighthawk Jr. and the
pianist Pinetop Perkins, who gave him boogie-woogie lessons, and he learned to
play guitar.
In high school he formed a group called the Kings of Rhythm. B. B. King helped
that band get a steady weekend gig and recommended it to Sam Phillips at Sun
Studios in Memphis. The band had been performing jukebox hits, but on the drive
from Mississippi to Memphis, its members decided to write something of their
own.
Their saxophonist, Jackie Brenston, suggested a song about the new Rocket 88
Oldsmobile. The piano-pounding intro and the first verse were by Mr. Turner, and
the band collaborated on the rest; Mr. Brenston sang.
Sun was not yet its own record label, so Mr. Phillips sent the song to Chess
Records. It went on to sell a half-million copies. “I was playing rhythm and
blues,” Mr. Turner wrote. “That’s all I was playing.” His book says he was paid
$20 for the record.
Mr. Turner became a session guitarist, known for his flamboyant, note-bending
use of his guitar’s whammy bar. He was also a producer, songwriter and talent
scout for Sun and for RPM/Modern Records. He worked with Mr. King, Bobby (Blue)
Bland, Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Ace, Otis Rush, Elmore James and many other blues
and R&B musicians.
In 1954 he moved up the Mississippi River to East St. Louis, Ill., where his
disciplined and dynamic band became a major draw at local clubs. There, in 1958,
he heard Anna Mae Bullock, who joined the group and quickly became its focal
point as Tina Turner. The band was soon renamed the Ike and Tina Turner Revue.
Her lead vocal on “A Fool in Love” started a streak of Top 10 R&B hits for the
revue and also reached the pop Top 40. It was followed by “It’s Gonna Work Out
Fine” in 1961. The duo became stars on the grueling so-called chitlin’ circuit
of African-American clubs.
Ike and Tina Turner had a wedding ceremony in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1962; Mr.
Turner’s book said they were never actually married. They had a son, Ronald, who
survives him, along with Jeanette Bazzell Turner and four other children: Mia,
Twanna, Michael and Ike Jr.
The Rolling Stones chose the Ike and Tina Turner Revue as its opening act on a
1969 tour, introducing it to many rock fans. In 1971 the revue reached the pop
Top 10 with its version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary,” with
Ike’s deep vocal counterpoint and Tina’s memorable spoken-word interlude. “We
never do anything nice and easy,” Ms. Turner says in the song. “We always do it
nice and rough.” That song won a Grammy Award for best R&B performance by a
group.
Ms. Turner’s account of the couple’s years together describes domestic violence,
infidelity and drug use; his version does not deny that, although he wrote in
his book, “Tina and me, we had our fights, but we ain’t had no more fights than
anybody else.”
Tina walked out on him in 1975. Mr. Turner, already abusing cocaine and alcohol,
spiraled further downward during the 1980s while Ms. Turner became a
multimillion-selling star on her own. A recording studio he had built in Los
Angeles burned down in 1982, and he was arrested repeatedly on drug charges. In
1989 he went to prison for various cocaine-possession offenses and was in jail
when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But he had a windfall when the hip-hop duo Salt ’N’ Pepa used a sample of his
song “I’m Blue” for their 1993 hit “Shoop,” which reached No. 4 on the Billboard
pop chart.
Mr. Turner set out to reclaim his place in rock history. He wrote his
autobiography with a British writer, Nigel Cawthorne. At the 2001 Chicago Blues
Festival he performed with Pinetop Perkins in a set filmed for the Martin
Scorsese PBS series “The Blues.” He renamed his band the Kings of Rhythm and
re-recorded “Rocket 88” for the 2001 album “Here and Now.” He toured
internationally, recording a live album and DVD, “The Resurrection,” at the
Montreux Jazz Festival in 2002. He visited high schools during Black History
Month with an antidrug message. He recorded a song with the British band
Gorillaz in 2005.
In the end, the music business embraced him: Mr. Turner’s 2006 album, “Risin’
With the Blues,” won the Grammy this year as best traditional blues album.
Saturday 12 June 2004
02.45 BST
Guardian.co.uk
Tony Russell
During the 1960s, a generation of teenagers discovered America's hidden music
of black blues, gospel and soul, and many of them promptly fissured into
followings of one genre or another. If anyone could reunite those factions it
was Ray Charles, who has died aged 73. His work had elements of every idiom: it
was pan-American music. Sometimes, it seemed to be even more than that.
In 1960, Charles recorded Hoagy Carmichael's "old sweet song", Georgia On My
Mind. It was a beautiful thing in itself, but, appearing as it did in the early
years of the civil rights struggle, Charles's bittersweet reading seemed like an
elegy to an Old South that was - or ought to have been - on its way out. To hear
a man singing with such exquisite tenderness about a place where he could not
eat lunch or use a public lavatory on his own terms made the terrible
ambivalences of black southern life unbearably vivid.
The tools that Charles brought to this, and the many other extraordinary
performances he recorded in the 1950s and 60s, were a hugely expressive voice,
and fingers that knotted the emotional ambiguities of the blues with the
incessant beat of gospel music.
But what elevated him above gifted contemporaries like Fats Domino or Charles
Brown was his skill as an arranger, giving shape and character to a piece,
plotting its contours and adding telling detail. This was the talent that
inspired him to take a routine blues, preface it with a few bars of electric
piano and texture it with a dialogue between himself and his backing singers
that began in church and ended up in the bedroom.
"What'd I Say didn't feel like a big deal at the time," remembered Tom Dowd,
Atlantic Records' engineer. "Ray, the gals and the band live in the small
studio, no overdubs. Next!" But during the summer of 1959, the record became, as
Charles's biographer Michael Lydon has written, "the life of a million parties,
the spark of as many romances." And more: "In faraway Liverpool, Paul McCartney
heard it and chills went up and down his spine: 'I knew right then and there I
wanted to be involved in that kind of music'."
Charles's own involvement in music began when he was a three-year-old in
Greenville, Florida, where he and his mother had moved from his birthplace in
Albany, Georgia. Sitting on the lap of a local pianist, Wiley Pitman, he learned
where to put his fingers in order to reproduce his teacher's rolling
boogie-woogie figures. A year or two later he lost his sight, perhaps from
congenital glaucoma, and, at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, he
learned to read music in Braille.
Before he was out of his teens, talent and determination had led him to Seattle
and then Los Angeles, where he worked for the blues singer Lowell Fulson and
before leading his own groups. Already, he was a man fit to be respected by
younger musicians: Quincy Jones, three years his junior, listened to the ideas
Charles was deploying in his arrangements and found that "the whole world opened
up".
Charles's first records were blues and pop songs in the husky vocal manner of
contemporary stars like Nat "King" Cole and Charles Brown, but by the time he
signed with Atlantic in 1952, he was searching for his own music - and within a
couple of years he had found it. In songs like I've Got A Woman, This Little
Girl Of Mine and Hallelujah I Love Her So, he pulled down the wall between blues
and gospel and used the bricks to build hit records.
Discovering in Atlantic's owners, Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, and their in-house
producer Jerry Wexler, a team that understood and encouraged his vision, he
diversified into jazz, recording with the vibraharpist Milt Jackson, and sang
standards with a big band on the 1959 album The Genius Of Ray Charles, which
stayed in the charts for 82 weeks.
His most momentous experiment, however, came after he had left Atlantic for
ABC-Paramount, a larger label with the resources to lift him out of the ghetto
of the rhythm 'n' blues chart and give him the keys to the city of mainstream
pop. Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music (1962) applied big-band jazz and
pop orchestrations to classics of the hillbilly song folio like Born To Lose,
territory that was supposed to be a no-go area for black musicians. The album's
vast success, spearheaded by the chart-topping I Can't Stop Loving You,
reverberated through Nashville for years afterwards.
Charles was, by that time, a headliner in the day-to-day world of package tours
and one-nighters, and with the pressures of that life came the usual problems:
drugs, paternity suits, fallings-out with musicians. He had always had the
ability to sink himself in his music and ignore most of what went on around him,
and he spent much of the 1970s absorbed in his own production company, Ray
Charles Enterprises, his record label Tangerine and his studios, where he could
put his knowledge of music and electronics into the service of ever more
ambitious projects.
Inevitably, having demonstrated that he lived outside the law of categories, he
began to disappoint admirers who still followed it. For his old constituency of
jazz and blues enthusiasts, his expansion into show tunes and singalong country
songs seemed like a series of wrong turnings, and his recording of the Beatles'
Eleanor Rigby, though arresting, was hardly likely to change their opinion.
Perhaps they were cheered by his cameo in Jon Landis's movie The Blues Brothers
(1980), where he plays the benevolent music-store owner who equips John Belushi
and Dan Aykroyd so that they can fulfil their "mission from God" and put their
band back together.
By the 1990s Charles's best work was behind him, but, having already received a
Grammy lifetime achievement award and similar honours from from the Rock 'n'
Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, he extended his list of
Grammys to a dozen with I'll Be Good To You, a duet with Chaka Khan, and A Song
For You.
His last public appearance was in April, when the RPM International Building,
his old studio in downtown Los Angeles, was designated a historic landmark. His
final recording, due to be released in August, is Genius Loves Company, a
collection of duets with such admirers as Willie Nelson, Elton John and Norah
Jones.
Charles was twice divorced and is survived by 12 children.
· Ray Charles (Robinson), musician, born September 23 1930; died June 10 2004
