RIP Ray Charles
I dare say there are few rock, pop, blues and even jazz piano players
today who were not instantly and almost totally influenced and transformed
by the artistry of Ray Charles.
Also he became arguably the most influential improvisational singer in
American popular music since Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday.
Taking the baton from the smooth cafe-blues style of the late Charles
Brown, Charles crafted a style--or is it truer to say he became a vehicle
for an all-pervasive style? -- Ray Charles for the first time fused the feel
and musical architecture of black gospel music, hard bop jazz and urban
blues. The cocktail he concocted was potent, and quickly won over the world.
Without Ray Charles’s style as a guideline, or lodestone, younger
players attending the post-Woodstock audience would have had no starting
point, much as guitarists had to begin at Robert Johnson, T-Bone Walker and
B.B. King.
Some were acolytes: Billy Preston, Stevie Winwood and Leon Russell come
to mind. What they brought to the equation was impressive, but never as
seminally important as Charles himself.
Every young keyboard player and singer who wanted to sound soulful has
had to learn the Ray Charles “bag.” You can hear him near-quoted everyday in
this country, from a Diana Krall concert to the musings of a keyboardist in
a local hotel show band.
His time came for big hits came and went, but his influence has
lingered, stubbornly refusing to diminish, and is a major component of the
gloriously rich patina that is American music today.
-- Bill Holland
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