Ray Charles: A Memorial

[Plan 9]

Legend Ray Charles Dead at 73

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Ray Charles, a transcendent talent who erased musical boundaries between the sacred and the secular with hits such as "What'd I Say," "Georgia on My Mind" and "I Can't Stop Loving You," died Thursday. He was 73.

Blind by age 7 and an orphan at 15, the gifted pianist and saxophonist spent his life shattering any notion of musical categories and defying easy definition.

Charles won nine of his 12 Grammy Awards between 1960 and 1966, including the best R&B recording three consecutive years ("Hit the Road Jack," "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "Busted").

His versions of other songs are also well known, including "Makin' Whoopee" and a stirring "America the Beautiful." Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell wrote "Georgia on My Mind" in 1931, but it didn't become Georgia's official state song until 1979, long after Charles turned it into an American standard.

"The way I see it, we're actors, but musical ones," he once told The Associated Press. "We're doing it with notes, and lyrics with notes, telling a story..."

Charles...was survived by 12 children, 20 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. A memorial service was planned for next week at Los Angeles' First AME Church, with burial afterward at Inglewood Cemetery.

Read entire article here:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/10/obit.ray.charles.ap/

http://sevenofnine.cherrytaco.com/Miscellanea/Misc_Images/Georgia_on_My_Mind_Deb_Collins.jpg

Art print, Georgia on My Mind, by Deb Collins

[Plan 9]

Ray Charles Memorial Service
Soul Music Pioneer Honored

June 18, 2004 -- Soul music pioneer Ray Charles died Thursday, June 10, at 73. Participants in his memorial service, held Friday, June 18, included Clint Eastwood, B.B. King, Willie Nelson and Stevie Wonder.

PROGRAM

Processional

Invocation: Reverend Leonard Jackson

Music: "Georgia on My Mind" (Charmichael/Gorrel) Ray Charles (recorded)

Scriptures: Old Testament, Psalms 23 read by Reverend Robert Robinson, Sr., Greater Faith Ministries; New Testament, I Corinthians 15:51-58, read by Reverend Jesse Jackson

Musical Selection: The Lord's Prayer, Ms. Susaye Greene

Musical Selection: "City Called Heaven" (Traditional) The Crenshaw High School Elite Choir

Acknowledgements: Ms. Cicely Tyson

Musical Selection: "Precious Lord" (Dorsey/Traditional) David "Fathead" Newman

Remarks: The Honorable Julian Bond, Vice Chairman NAACP

Musical Selection: "My Buddy" (dedicated to Quincy Jones) (Kahn/Donaldson) Ray Charles (recorded)

Musical Selection: "Where Could I Go But to the Lord" (The Coats/Traditional) Glen Campbell

Remarks: Mr. Joe Adams on behalf of Bill Cosby, Quincy Jones and President William Jefferson Clinton

A Fond Farewell: Mr. Clint Eastwood

Musical Selection: "Georgia on My Mind" (Charmichael/Gorrell) Willie Nelson

Resolutions: Reverend Joyce Randall

Musical Selection: "I Won't Complain" (Jones) Stevie Wonder

Obituary: Read Silently over Ray Charles' recorded version of "America"

Musical Selection: "Please Accept My Love" (King/Ling) B.B. King

Words of Comfort: Reverend Cecil L. Murray

Musical Selection: "Old Rugged Cross" (Bennard/Traditional) and "Down by the Riverside" (Traditional) Wynton Marsalis

Parting View

Recessional: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (Arlen/Harburg) (duet recently recorded by Ray Charles and Johnny Mathis)

Pallbearers: James Austin, John Burk, Tony Gumina, William Lippert, Charles Mays, Billy Osborne, Damian Ross, Raymond Shivers

Honorary Pallbearers: Joe Adams, Lt. Fred Booker, Chief William J. Bratton, Ahmet Ertegun, Don Fischel, Carl Foster, Peter Funsten, Nate Holden, Quincy Jones, Peter Montgomery, Robert Pineda, Jack Revel

Master of Ceremonies: Joe Adams


http://sevenofnine.cherrytaco.com/Miscellanea/Misc_Images/Ray%20Charles.jpg

Soul music pioneer Ray Charles, 1930-2004.
Credit: Institute of Jazz Studies

[Plan 9]

(AP) Friends of Ray Charles sent the late singer off on a high note Friday.

B.B. King, Glen Campbell, Stevie Wonder and Wynton Marsalis performed musical tributes to Charles, who died last week at 73, during a joyous funeral service at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Charles' son, the Rev. Robert Robinson Sr., started the service with a rousing tone, clapping his hands throughout a reading from the Old Testament. Then the Rev. Jesse Jackson added a New Testament reading threaded with his own inspirational message.

Read entire article here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/10/entertainment/main622401.shtml

[bigsierra]

He will be missed.

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/05.14.03/gifs/ray-charles-0320-younger.jpg

http://www.itsablackthang.com/images/Otter%20Screens/ScreenRayCharles3.jpg

http://www.antville.org/img/joerg/raycharles.jpg

[MParedon]

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved his music.

[Plan 9]

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved his music.

Yes, me, too. I've always loved stories, and he was right about about that: he told some great ones, didn't he? I'll miss him so much; I even thought his Pepsi commercials were a joy. A world without Ray Charles in it will be a drearier place in which to dwell.

Big Sierra found some fine pics, too! :)
I looked for over an hour without finding any good enough.

I started this thread here because he was AME, but his music belonged to us all because that's the way he wanted it, and now I see it might have been a bigger success in OBOB? ;)

[bigsierra]

A Ray Charles memorial could be posted on every board :)

He is claimed by all popular genres of music.

Thank for posting it :)

[Plan 9]

A Ray Charles memorial could be posted on every board :)

I would certainly like to think so, but I haven't had the best of luck with memorial threads in the past. :eek:

He is claimed by all popular genres of music.

And justly so. I wonder if anyone has had such a broad influence on music since the Gershwins.

Thank for posting it :)

Thank you for providing those incredible pics! They're just perfect! :)

Because I got the first article in my e-mail, it took me forever to find a link I could use in order to snip it in the manner which AP finds acceptable, so I guess I spent about three hours finding and posting the various articles, and was seriously flagging when I went to look for images to go with them, so I felt dissatisfied with the thread when I finally had to leave off without them.
I was pretty thrilled when I found the order of service, though. :)

[Colabomb]

I would certainly like to think so, but I haven't had the best of luck with memorial threads in the past. :eek:



And justly so. I wonder if anyone has had such a broad influence on music since the Gershwins.



Thank you for providing those incredible pics! They're just perfect! :)

Because I got the first article in my e-mail, it took me forever to find a link I could use in order to snip it in the manner which AP finds acceptable, so I guess I spent about three hours finding and posting the various articles, and was seriously flagging when I went to look for images to go with them, so I felt dissatisfied with the thread when I finally had to leave off without them.
I was pretty thrilled when I found the order of service, though. :)
As you said, I have been stuck on a desert Island until just last week. (I learned English, and became computer literate quite fast).

How would you describe his music?

[Plan 9]

As you said, I have been stuck on a desert Island until just last week. (I learned English, and became computer literate quite fast).

How would you describe his music?

His music varies so much that it's almost impossible to describe. Even the Ray Charles Pepsi commercials were uniquely Ray charles in sound, while somehow somehow remaining Pepsi commercials.
As bigsierra commented earlier, neither all popular genres lay claim to him.
He's even credited with bringing the gospel music sound into blues, although the Gershwin's did it first with the opera Porgy and Bess (1929). However, the enduring pop favorite from that opera, and one which every female blues vocalist routinely attempts to perform is "Summertime".
Mr. Charles certainly effected a great deal of that transition, whether he was the first to break that ground or not.
I wish I had selections downloaded to illustrate this, but he made much of the difference between a then prevalent sytle of blues, which went like this:

"Twelveth Street and Delmar;
That's where my baby lives.."
(repeat)

to:

"Hit the road, Jack,
And don'cha come back
No more, no more, no more, no more..."

The first is rather subdued when preformed and uniform in comparison to the second, whereas "Hit the Road, Jack" wails more, and changes meters quite a bit between the refrain and the verses.

The "12th Street and Delmar" pattern was amusingly adapted by a band called The Incredible String Band as "The Robot Blues":

Down in Robot City,
You might think it's play, play , play.
Down in Robot City,
You might thnk it's play, play, play.
But a Number Nine robot
Has to work all the live-long day.

Number One come by here,
Give my work to me:
Clean the showers, oil the flowers,
Trim the electronic tree.
Shine it bright, do it right,
Boy, listen carefully:
Don't you go romancin'
With that pretty Number Three.

That's why, why I got the robot blues
From my heart's compartment
Down to my magnetic sole shoes.

This is a great blues song, silly as it is (and it gets way sillier!), and they could do this because there's a sort of old-time blues pattern available to everyone to use, but Ray Charles' songs were already too quirky to springboard from in this manner, and his arrangements were equally hard to meet or beat. Everyone felt his influence, but no one could take off on him.