Ray Charles Robinson Sr.[note 1] (September 23, 1930 - June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, pianist and alto saxophonist.[1][2] He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called "Brother Ray".[3][4] Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma.[5]
Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records.[5][6][7] He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two Modern Sounds albums.[8][9] While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.[6]
Charles's 1960 hit "Georgia On My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. His 1962 album Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music became his first album to top the Billboard 200.[10] Charles had multiple singles reach the Top 40 on various Billboard charts: 44 on the US R&B singles chart, 11 on the Hot 100 singles chart, 2 on the Hot Country singles charts.[11]
Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by Louis Jordan and Charles Brown.[12] He had a lifelong friendship and occasional partnership with Quincy Jones. Frank Sinatra called Ray Charles "the only true genius in show business," although Charles downplayed this notion.[13] Billy Joel said, "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley".[14]
For his musical contributions, Charles received the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, and the Polar Music Prize. He was one of the inaugural inductees at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. He has won 18 Grammy Awards (5 posthumously),[10] the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987, and 10 of his recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[10] Rolling Stone ranked Charles No. 10 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time,[3] and No. 2 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.[15] In 2022, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, as well as the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.[16]
Washington started his acting career in theatre, acting in performances off-Broadway, including William Shakespeare's Coriolanus in 1979. He first came to prominence in the medical drama St. Elsewhere (1982-1988). Washington's early film roles included Norman Jewison's A Soldier's Story (1984) and Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom (1987). For his role as Private Silas Trip in the Civil War drama Glory (1989), he won his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Throughout the 1990s, he established himself as a leading man in such varied films as Spike Lee's biographical film epic Malcolm X (1992), Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare adaptation Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Alan J. Pakula's legal thriller The Pelican Brief (1993), Jonathan Demme's drama Philadelphia (1993), and Norman Jewison's legal drama The Hurricane (1999). Washington won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as corrupt detective Alonzo Harris in the crime thriller Training Day (2001).[5] Washington has continued acting in diverse roles, such as football coach Herman Boone in Remember the Titans (2000), poet and educator Melvin B. Tolson in The Great Debaters (2007), drug kingpin Frank Lucas in American Gangster (2007) and an airline pilot with an addiction in Flight (2012).
He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in the Broadway revival of the August Wilson play Fences in 2010. Washington later directed, produced, and starred in the film adaptation in 2016, which was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Washington. He also produced the film adaptation of Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020). His stage credits include appearances in Broadway revivals of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun in 2014, and Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh in 2018. Washington is one of only five male actors to be nominated for an Academy Award in five different decades, alongside Laurence Olivier, Paul Newman, Michael Caine, and Jack Nicholson.