![]() ![]() Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Clydie King, whose earthy, gospel-rooted. Producer Wexler, who recorded “What’d I Say,” said he has worked with only three geniuses in the music business: Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Charles. Clydie King, unheralded backup singer to Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and dozens of other superstars, has died at age 75. radio stations banned the song, but Charles was on his way to stardom. His first big hit was 1959’s “What’d I Say,” a song built off a simple piano riff with suggestive moaning from the Raeletts. Soon, he was being called “The Genius” and was playing at Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival. Atlantic Records purchased his contract from Swingtime Records in 1952, and two years later he recorded “I Got a Woman,” a raw mixture of gospel and rhythm ’n’ blues, pioneering what was later called soul. The birth of soul musicCharles developed quickly in those early days. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. It was in Seattle’s red light district were he met a young Quincy Jones, showing the future producer and composer how to write music. He dropped his last name in deference to boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, patterned himself for a time after Nat “King” Cole and formed a group that backed rhythm ’n’ blues singer Ruth Brown. He filmed Charles extensively for a segment in the 2003 documentary “The Blues.” We had a great time recently reminiscing together and we will all miss him very much,” Eastwood said Thursday. “Ray Charles was a man we particularly admired both as a friend and as an artist. The Grammy winner’s last public appearance was alongside Clint Eastwood on April 30, when the city of Los Angeles designated the singer’s studios, built 40 years ago, as a historic landmark. ![]() His health deteriorated rapidly over the past year, after he had hip replacement surgery and was diagnosed with a failing liver. 407K subscribers Subscribe 6.9M views 1 year ago hittheroadjack raycharles officiallyricvideo The official lyric video for Ray Charles 'Hit The Road Jack' from the TRUE GENIUS boxset 'Hit. Two years into his contract with ABC-Paramount, he had already become a fixture in the Top Ten with both his singles and his albums, winning a Grammy for his 1960 single 'Georgia on My Mind. Smiling and swaying behind the piano, grunts and moans peppering his songs, Charles’ appeal spanned generations. When Ray Charles made Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music in 1962, he was operating from a position of power. He put his stamp on it all with a deep, warm voice roughened by heartbreak from a hardscrabble childhood in the segregated South. One of the first artists to record the “blasphemous idea of taking gospel songs and putting the devil’s words to them,” as legendary producer Jerry Wexler once said, Charles’ music spanned soul, rock ’n’ roll, R&B, country, jazz, big band and blues. 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. ![]()
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