Ray Charles describes himself as a “pretty average guy,” even though the music legend is known as the “Genius of Soul.”
“I’m probably among the world’s worst procrastinators. I don’t like to deal with anything that’s unpleasant. I’ll keep putting it off and putting it off, whereas it would be much better if I’d just get it out of the way. But it takes a lot of time for me to gird myself,” says Charles, who just turned 70.
Heck, in such a life, one filled with amazing accomplishments, a little procrastination is forgivable. Famed for the classics “Georgia on My Mind,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You” and such other hits as “What’d I Say?” “Hit the Road, Jack” and “I Got a Woman,” the 10-time Grammy winner blended the gospel sounds of his Southern Baptist heritage with the earthiness of R&B to create modern soul music. His wide-ranging work spans jazz to pop to rock, and it was this African-American who brought country and western music mainstream. “The Crossover King” has been a major influence to three generations of singers and musicians.
This fall, Rhino Records is releasing “The Very Best of Ray Charles, Vol. 2,” packed with his hits of the past half-century, and another CD, “Ray Charles: Duets,” featuring vintage turns with Aretha Franklin and Willie Nelson, among others.
In his Los Angeles office, with custom-made recording studio, the unassuming Charles is instantly friendly — and, as onstage, constantly, rhythmically in motion, his head thrown back in frequent laughter.
He is 5-foot-9 and wears dark glasses. Charles began losing his sight at age 5, from what doctors now believe was glaucoma. By 7, he was completely blind. “Sometimes people come into my office and say, `Ray, why don’t you turn on the light?’ I say, `Oh, I forgot — I don’t have to bother with it. You want the light? There’s the switch. Put it on!”‘
He does have an easy humor about his sightlessness. On using sophisticated computer equipment in his studio, he says, in his rich, husky voice: “I know how to run everything, though there are no talking computers to tell me what I’m doing. Sighted people have lights that tell them. I have to remember what everything is, where it is and what to push. But I do it. And, of course, the machine don’t know I’m blind. As long as I hit the right buttons, that’s all that matters.”
About having flown an airplane, he jokes: “I sat in the pilot’s seat and actually flew the plane. I’ve always thought that anything that can kill you, you ought to know something about. You’re up in the air 20,000 feet, honey — there’s nothing to run into!”
And Charles does maintain an incredibly bustling travel schedule, performing around the world typically five nights in seven. But, he says, “I can’t do things the way I did when I was 20 or 30. So what’s important to me when I get into town is to go to the hotel, and at around 3 or 4 take a nice little nap. Then I go to work at about 7, or whatever time the concert is.”
Which is one of the few situations that finds the star keeping to a strict schedule. “I can’t be rigid,” he says. “I just do what I do when I got time to do it — unless it involves an appointment with someone. But I have no certain time to do anything. Like, I hear people say, `Oh, it’s 12 o’clock. Time for lunch! I never understood that. It’s time for lunch whenever you’re hungry.”
Charles had a wild youth — and middle age. He admits to fathering “at least nine, maybe 11” children by seven or more women, his offspring ranging in age from about 20 to 50. Twice divorced and a defendant in two paternity suits, Charles claims, however, that romance is behind him. “I try to stay quiet now. I’m an old man. The good part is: I’ve been there, done that. So I don’t have any hankering to be out there trying to prove anything. Everything I wanted to do, I did. I don’t want to go back and relive my youth.”
In fact, he says he basically is a loner who is subject to moods. (“No, I ain’t mad! I just don’t want to talk now!” he is wont to say.) Nowadays his idea of a good time is “to sit down with a friend and play a game of chess. I treasure that. Or to go to a good friend’s, have a nice meal and do nothing but talk. Or to get three or four guys and play cards — have a `Rise and Shine.’ That’s when, if you lose, you have to get up and serve the others. Like, if I lose, I’ve got to get the drinks. You become the servant. But that’s nice too. It’s all in fun.”
The world-famous entertainer shuns big parties. “When you have a hundred people at a place and don’t know any of them, what do you say after, `Good evening. How do you feel?’ I don’t know the people. They know of me, but they don’t know me. All you do is stand around and drink and drink, and people start getting more ignorant and stupid … because not everybody can handle alcohol, babe. So you see all these folks acting silly.
“That’s why I have only a few friends that I hang around with. People either want you to be their clone — be just like them — or their footstool — they want to rule you. Think about it. But I want to be me. People should let people live their lives the way they want, and I guarantee you wouldn’t have as much war.”
About a year ago a bad case of laryngitis forced him to cancel some concerts. “But the minute I got to the point where I could talk a little,” he says, “I started singing” — against doctors orders. “As of today, my voice is about 90 percent of what it was before I had laryngitis. I’m still having some problems with my falsetto.”
So what is Charles’ chief challenge these days? “Staying healthy. I might be a little apprehensive when I have to go for my annual checkup. You never know what they’re going to tell you. But so, far,” he says, “I’ve been lucky.”
As for turning the big 7-0, Charles simply says, “I’m just thankful to God that I’m alive. I’m very appreciative I’ve made it to here. Seventy years old is saying a lot. So many of the people I grew up with are no longer with us.”
