Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story

Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story
by Ray Charles, David Ritz

Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story
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Book Summary Information

Author: David Ritz, Ray Charles
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-10-27
ISBN: 0306814315
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Da Capo Press

Book Reviews of Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story

Book Review: America, the beautiful...
Summary: 5 Stars

Read Ray Charles' profane, outrageously self-revealing "as-told -to" autobiography, then spin his epochal gospel drenched version of "America." This is an exemplary lifestory, and proof of the pudding as to the "why" of American exceptionalism, which came in for much ridicule in the last election cycle. Brother Ray overcame a succession of childhood traumas, both staggering and sadly commonplace (poverty in the segregated south, absent father, witnessing the accidental drowning of his brother at age 5, blindess, devoted but sickly mother dying when he's still a kid, 20 years of heroin addiction...); he went on the road as a professional musician when he was 15 years old; young Quincy Jones, encountering Ray pre-fame in his late teens said he seemed 100 years old. By 25, he had single-handedly invented soul music, the fusion of rhythm and blues with gospel, scandalizing the faithful while roughening pop music with blues realism in a way no white rock and roller ever managed. By 29, he had, in Gary Giddins' words, jazz in one pocket (his ace 8-piece hard bop band, his sides with Milt Jackson, his great album of standards, "Genius") and R & B in the other pocket. He then confounded expectations by signing an unprecedented contract with a fledgling label,which gave him ownership of his masters and complete artistic control, and started cutting country sides, and selling gazillion copies. He crossed the same racial divide as Elvis, but from the other direction, a far more audacious move. In 1962, the titan of black music completely upended cultural hierarchies by singing the hell out of the music of the white southern working class; as he said, soul, country, its the same damn thing. He also said he would never be satisified with headlining the Apollo Theater, as all of his African American peers would be. Ray knew from an early age he could take over the world, and he did. Black, blind, orphaned, beyond poor, addicted, and he never seemed to have a moments doubt as to where he would end up. Proud and thorny, he could make Sinatra's boast of doing it his way, but he never had the assists of dangerous powerful people and Hollywood that Frank had -- Ray was alone, and wanted it that way. If he spent the last 35 years of his career coasting, with fitfully inspired moments on record, his live performances were always committed and stellar. This book is one of the best log cabin to mansion stories I've ever read, and it has the sting of truth. Not coincidentally, Ray is self-admittedly a selfish SOB of the first order, single minded in his pursuit of his art, to the detriment of scores of women and the childen he begot on them. But his book, like his singing, cuts though with the ring of truth and authenticity. As other reviewers here have noted, his co-author blanched about Ray's frankness when he read the proofs, and Ray instructed him, "Don't change a goddamn word."

Summary of Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story

Ray Charles (1930-2004) led one of the most extraordinary lives of any popular musician. In Brother Ray, he tells his story in an inimitable and unsparing voice, from the chronicle of his musical development to his heroin addiction to his tangled romantic life. Overcoming poverty, blindness, the loss of his parents, and the pervasive racism of the era, Ray Charles was acclaimed worldwide as a genius by the age of thirty-two. By combining the influences of gospel, jazz, blues, and country music, he invented, almost single-handedly, what became known as soul. And throughout a career spanning more than a half century, Ray Charles remained in complete control of his life and his music, allowing nobody to tell him what he could and couldn't do.As the Chicago Sun-Times put it, Brother Ray is "candid, explicit, sometimes embarrassing, often hilarious, always warm, touching and deeply human-just like his music."

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