Ray Charles (1930-2004) led one of the most extraordinary lives of any popular musician. In Brother Ray, he reveals his life story unsparingly, 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 or couldn't do.
Reviews
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If the renewed interest in Ray Charles's life and music creates a new readership for this biography, the audio should have even greater appeal. Even through a ghostwriter, Charles speaks mostly in clichés, which sound even more dated today than they did in 1978, when the book was first published. Still, his words are brought to life by Andrew Barnes. He doesn't imitate Charles's distinctive voice but captures all of its passion and style. Even when Barnes occasionally stumbles over a sentence, the text is entertaining and far more compelling than it would have been in print. As a bonus, coauthor David Ritz includes a revealing postscript written shortly after Charles's death last year. D.B. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
About the Author
David Ritz is the author of Faith in Time: The Life of Jimmy Scott, Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye, and many other books. He lives in Los Angeles.
