![]() ![]() He got his first Top Ten R&B hit with 'Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand' in 1951. By the late '40s, he was recording in a smooth pop/R&B style derivative of Nat 'King' Cole and Charles Brown. His parents had died by his early teens, and he worked as a musician in Florida for a while before using his savings to move to Seattle in 1947. Augustine School for the Deaf and the Blind. The brilliance of his 1950s and '60s work, however, can't obscure the fact that he made few classic tracks after the mid-'60s, though he recorded often and performed until the year before his death.īlind since the age of six (from glaucoma), Charles studied composition and learned many instruments at the St. He was also a superb keyboard player, arranger, and bandleader. Then there was his singing his style was among the most emotional and easily identifiable of any 20th century performer, up there with the likes of Elvis and Billie Holiday. Singers like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson also did a great deal to pioneer the form, but Charles did even more to devise a new form of black pop by merging '50s R&B with gospel-powered vocals, adding plenty of flavor from contemporary jazz, blues, and (in the '60s) country. ![]() Ray Charles was the musician most responsible for developing soul music. ![]()
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