Ray Charles - Ray Charles (1962) [FULL ALBUM]

Released on Coronet Records. CXS - 173

0:00 Misery In My Heart
3:05 Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand
6:09 I'm Just A Lonely Boy
9:01 Kissa Me Baby
12:10 Ray's Blues
13:52 The Snow Is Falling
16:43 All The Girls In Town
19:06 Late In The Evening
22:12 Blues Is My Middle Name
25:24 Easy Riding Gal

The Most Amazing Story In show business concerns a young man who has, despite almost unbelievable odds, became tops in his field.

The Ray Charles story began simply enough twenty-eight years ago in Albany, Georgia. Six years later, the Charles family was living in Greensfield, Florida and the first tragedy struck - young Ray was blinded, completely and without hope for recovery.

The six-year-old youngster was sent to St. Augustine, Florida where there was a school for blind children and there he grew up. Actually, Ray Charles only got to grow up to the age of fifteen before fate struck its next hard blow. That year both his parents died. Ray was blind, orphaned and without a relative in the world at fifteen.

It is at this point that the fantastic development of the Ray Charles career began. He left the school and went out on his own. He had acquired some musical knowledge and right away he got jobs playing around Florida with a variety of bands. Within two years he had an enviable reputation as a sideman. Then at seventeen the intrepid youngster decided the time had come to do something on his own and he organized his first trio with a bass and guitar to blend with his piano and his sax.

Ray Charles says that the first trio sounded more or less like Nat "King" Cole's. Cole was the first great influence musically on the Charles talents. "But", says Ray, "I knew I had to change if I was going to get anywhere. I knew I had to develop a style of my own." The basis for what he did develop was his firm conviction that music should express people's true feelings. These recordings, made during the period in which he was developing his present day style, show that then, just as today… sincerity is his watchword.

I do not own the rights to this music. If the people who do own the rights to this music are not happy about the presence of this music on this YouTube channel, they may simply email me at [email protected] and request that it be taken down.