RPS is a three-letter abbreviation that may refer to:

• Racial Preservation Society, a defunct British pressure group
• Radioisotope Power System, a type of Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator used on NASA projects such as the Mars Science Laboratory
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• Real People Slash, a synonym of real person fiction
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• Revere Public Schools
• Revolutions per second, a measure of angular velocity
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• Robert Pattinson School, a specialist language school in the United Kingdom
• Rock-paper-scissors, a game
• Rock, Paper, Shotgun, a British PC Gaming website
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• Royal Photographic Society, in the United Kingdom
• Royal Protection Squad, a general name for the two branches who provides protective security for the U.K. Royal Family.
• RPS Group plc, a consultancy in the United Kingdom
• Rutgers Preparatory School, New Jersey
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• Role-playing shooters
• Risk-based Planning and Scheduling, a scheduling technique combining deterministic and stochastic analysis

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Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder at a conference in Salvador, Brazil, in July 2006
Background information
Birth name	Stevland Hardaway Judkins
Also known as	Stevland Hardaway Morris, Little Stevie Wonder, Eivets Rednow
Born	(1950-05-13) May 13, 1950 (age 62) Saginaw, Michigan, United States
Origin	Detroit, Michigan, United States
Genres	Soul, pop, R&B, funk, jazz
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, activist
Instruments	Vocals, synthesizer, piano, keyboards, harmonica, clavinet, drums, bass guitar, congas, bongos, melodica, keytar, accordion
Years active	1961–present
Labels	Tamla, Motown
Website	www.steviewonder.net

Stevland Hardaway Morris (born May 13, 1950 as Stevland Hardaway Judkins),^[1] known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century.^[2] Blind since shortly after birth,^[3] Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of eleven,^[2] and continues to perform and record for Motown to this day.

Among Wonder's best known works are singles such as "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "I Wish" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You". Well known albums also include Talking Book, Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life.^[2] He has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and received twenty-two Grammy Awards, the most ever awarded to a male solo artist. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States.^[4] In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace.^[5] In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's fiftieth anniversary, with Wonder at number five.

Early life[link]

Stevie Wonder was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950, the third of six children to Calvin Judkins and Lula Mae Hardaway. Owing to his being born six weeks premature, the blood vessels at the back of his eyes had not yet reached the front and their aborted growth caused the retinas to detach.^[3] The medical term for this condition is retinopathy of prematurity, or ROP, and it was exacerbated by the oxygen pumped into his incubator.^[6]

When Stevie Wonder was four, his mother left his father and moved herself and her children to Detroit. She changed her name back to Lula Hardaway and later changed her son's surname to Morris, partly because of relatives. Morris has remained Stevie Wonder's legal surname ever since. He began playing instruments at an early age, including piano, harmonica, drums and bass. During childhood he was active in his church choir.

Discovery and early Motown recordings[link]

Ronnie White of The Miracles gives credit to his brother Gerald White for persistently nagging him to come to his friend's house in 1961 to check out Stevie Wonder.^[7] Afterward, White brought Wonder and his mother to Motown. Impressed by the young musician, Motown CEO Berry Gordy signed Wonder to Motown's Tamla label with the name Little Stevie Wonder.^[1] Before signing, producer Clarence Paul gave Wonder his trademark name after stating "we can't keep calling him the eighth wonder of the world". He then recorded the regional Detroit single, "I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call It the Blues", which was released on Tamla in late 1961. Wonder released his first two albums, The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie and Tribute to Uncle Ray, in 1962, to little success.

Music career[link]

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Early success: 1963–1971[link]

By age 13, Wonder had a major hit, "Fingertips (Pt. 2)", a 1963 single taken from a live recording of a Motor Town Revue performance, issued on the album Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius. The song, featuring Wonder on vocals, bongos, and harmonica, and a young Marvin Gaye on drums, was a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts, making him the youngest artist to top the former in its history and launching him into the public consciousness.

In 1964, Stevie Wonder made his film debut in Muscle Beach Party as himself, credited as "Little Stevie Wonder". He returned in the sequel released five months later, Bikini Beach. He performed on-screen in both films, singing "Happy Street," and "Happy Feelin' (Dance and Shout)," respectively.

Dropping the "Little" from his name, Wonder went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s, including "Uptight (Everything's Alright)",^[8] "With a Child's Heart", and "Blowin' in the Wind", a Bob Dylan cover, co-sung by his mentor, producer Clarence Paul. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his label mates, including "Tears of a Clown", a number one hit performed by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.

In 1968 he recorded an album of instrumental soul/jazz tracks, mostly harmonica solos, under the pseudonym (and title) Eivets Rednow, which is "Stevie Wonder" spelled backwards. The album failed to get much attention, and its only single, a cover of "Alfie", only reached number 66 on the U.S. Pop charts and number 11 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary charts. Nonetheless, he managed to score several hits between 1968 and 1970 such as "I Was Made to Love Her";^[8] "For Once in My Life" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours". In September 1970, at the age of 20, Wonder married Syreeta Wright, a songwriter and former Motown secretary. Wright and Wonder co-wrote the songs on the next album, Where I'm Coming From, which did not succeed in the charts. Reaching his twenty-first birthday on May 13, 1971, he allowed his Motown contract to expire.^[9]

In 1970, Wonder co-wrote, and played numerous instruments on the hit "It's a Shame" for fellow Motown act The Spinners. His contribution was meant to be a showcase of his talent and thus a weapon in his ongoing negotiations with Gordy about creative autonomy.^[10]

Classic period: 1972–1976[link]

Wonder independently recorded two albums, which he used as a bargaining tool while negotiating with Motown.^{[citation needed]} Eventually the label agreed to his demands for full creative control and the rights to his own songs. The 120-page contract was a precedent at Motown and gave Wonder a much higher royalty rate.^[11] Wonder returned to Motown in March 1972 with Music of My Mind. Unlike most previous albums on Motown, which usually consisted of a collection of singles, B-sides and covers, Music of My Mind was a full-length artistic statement with songs flowing together thematically.^[11] Wonder's lyrics dealt with social, political, and mystical themes as well as standard romantic ones, while musically Wonder began exploring overdubbing and recording most of the instrumental parts himself.^[11] Music of My Mind marked the beginning of a long collaboration with Tonto's Expanding Head Band (Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil).^[12][13]

	"Superstition" (reduced quality) noicon from Talking Book by Stevie Wonder, Motown 1972-10-27. Sample from Stevie Wonder Song Review: A Greatest Hits Collection, Motown, 1996-12-10
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Released in late 1972, Talking Book featured the No. 1 hit "Superstition",^[14] which is one of the most distinctive and famous examples of the sound of the Hohner clavinet keyboard.^[15] The song features a rocking groove that garnered Wonder an additional audience on rock radio stations.^{[citation needed]} Talking Book also featured "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", which also peaked at No. 1. During the same time as the album's release, Stevie Wonder began touring with the Rolling Stones to alleviate the negative effects from pigeon-holing as a result of being an R&B artist in America.^[7] Wonder's touring with The Rolling Stones was also a factor behind the success of both "Superstition" and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life".^[11][16] Between them, the two songs won three Grammy Awards.^[17] On an episode of the children's television show Sesame Street that aired in April 1973,^[18] Wonder and his band performed "Superstition", as well as an original song called "Sesame Street Song", which demonstrated his abilities with the "talk box".

Innervisions, released in 1973, featured "Higher Ground" (#4 on the pop charts) as well as the trenchant "Living for the City" (#8).^[14] Both songs reached No. 1 on the R&B charts. Popular ballads such as "Golden Lady" and "All in Love Is Fair" were also present, in a mixture of moods that nevertheless held together as a unified whole.^[19] Innervisions generated three more Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.^[17] The album is ranked #23 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.^[20] Wonder had become the most influential and acclaimed black musician of the early 1970s.^[11]

On August 6, 1973, Wonder was in a serious automobile accident while on tour in North Carolina, when a car in which he was riding hit the back of a truck.^[11][21] This left him in a coma for four days and resulted in a partial loss of his sense of smell and a temporary loss of sense of taste.^[22] Despite the setback, Wonder re-appeared in concert at Madison Square Garden in March 1974 with a performance that highlighted both up-tempo material and long, building improvisations on mid-tempo songs such as "Living for the City".^[11] The album Fulfillingness' First Finale appeared in July 1974 and set two hits high on the pop charts: the #1 "You Haven't Done Nothin'" and the Top Ten "Boogie On Reggae Woman". The Album of the Year was again one of three Grammys won.^[17]

The same year Wonder took part in a Los Angeles jam session which would become known by the bootleg album A Toot and a Snore in '74.^[23][24] He also co-wrote and produced the Syreeta Wright album Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta.^[25][26]

On October 4, 1975, Wonder performed at the historical "Wonder Dream Concert" in Kingston, Jamaica, a benefit for the Jamaican Institute for the Blind.^[27]

By 1975, in his 25th year, Stevie Wonder had won two consecutive Grammy Awards: in 1974 for Innervisions and in 1975 for Fulfillingness' First Finale.^{[citation needed]} In 1975 he featured on the album It's My Pleasure by Billy Preston, playing harmonica on two tracks.^{[not relevant]}

The double album-with-extra-EP Songs in the Key of Life, was released in September 1976. Sprawling in style, unlimited in ambition, and sometimes lyrically difficult to fathom, the album was hard for some listeners to assimilate, yet is regarded by many as Wonder's crowning achievement and one of the most recognizable and accomplished albums in pop music history.^[11][14][28] The album became the first of an American artist to debut straight at #1 in the Billboard charts, where it remained for 14 non-consecutive weeks.^[29] Two tracks, became #1 Pop/R&B hits "I Wish" and "Sir Duke". The baby-celebratory "Isn't She Lovely?" was written about his newborn daughter Aisha, while songs such as "Love's in Need of Love Today" (which years later Wonder would perform at the post-September 11, 2001 America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon) and "Village Ghetto Land" reflected a far more pensive mood. Songs in the Key of Life won Album of the Year and two other Grammys.^[17] The album ranks 56th on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.^[20]

After such a concentrated and sustained level of creativity, Wonder stopped recording for three years, releasing only the 3 LP Looking Back, an anthology of his first Motown period. The albums Wonder released during this period were very influential on the music world: the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide said they "pioneered stylistic approaches that helped to determine the shape of pop music for the next decade";^[14] Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included four of the five albums, with three in the top 90.^[20]

Commercial period: 1979–1990[link]

It was in Wonder's next phase that he began to commercially reap the rewards of his legendary classic period. The 1980s saw Wonder scoring his biggest hits and reaching an unprecedented level of fame evidenced by increased album sales, charity participation, high-profile collaborations, political impact, and television appearances.

When Wonder did return, it was with the soundtrack album Journey through the Secret Life of Plants (1979), featured in the film The Secret Life of Plants. Mostly instrumental, the album was composed using the Computer Music Melodian, an early sampler. Wonder toured briefly in support of the album, and used a Fairlight CMI sampler on stage.^[30] In this year Wonder also wrote and produced the dance hit "Let's Get Serious", performed by Jermaine Jackson and (ranked by Billboard as the #1 R&B single of 1980).

Hotter than July (1980) became Wonder's first platinum-selling single album, and its single "Happy Birthday" was a successful vehicle for his campaign to establish Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday as a national holiday. The album also included "Master Blaster (Jammin')", "I Ain't Gonna Stand for It", and the sentimental ballad, "Lately".

In 1982, Wonder released a retrospective of his 1970s work with Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium, which included four new songs: the ten-minute funk classic "Do I Do" (which featured Dizzy Gillespie), "That Girl" (one of the year's biggest singles to chart on the R&B side), "Front Line", a narrative about a soldier in the Vietnam War that Stevie Wonder wrote and sang in the 1st person, and "Ribbon in the Sky", one of his many classic compositions. Wonder also gained a #1 hit that year in collaboration with Paul McCartney in their paean to racial harmony, "Ebony and Ivory".

In 1983, Wonder performed the song "Stay Gold", the theme to Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders. Wonder wrote the lyrics.

In 1983, Wonder scheduled an album to be entitled "People Work, Human Play." The album never surfaced and instead 1984 saw the release of Wonder's soundtrack album for The Woman in Red. The lead single, "I Just Called to Say I Love You", was a #1 pop and R&B hit in both the United States and the United Kingdom, where it was placed 13th in the list of best-selling singles in the UK published in 2002. It went on to win an Academy Award for "Best Song" in 1985. The album also featured a guest appearance by Dionne Warwick, singing the duet "It's You" with Stevie and a few songs of her own. The following year's In Square Circle featured the #1 pop hit "Part-Time Lover". The album also has a Top 10 Hit with "Go Home." It also featured the ballad "Overjoyed" which was originally written for Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, but didn't make the album. He performed "Overjoyed" on Saturday Night Live when he was the host. He was also featured in Chaka Khan's cover of Prince's "I Feel For You", alongside Melle Mel, playing his signature harmonica. In roughly the same period he was also featured on harmonica on Eurythmics' single, "There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)" and Elton John's "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues".

By 1985, Stevie Wonder was an American icon,^{[citation needed]} the subject of good-humored jokes about blindness and affectionately impersonated by Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live.^{[citation needed]} Wonder sometimes joined in the jokes himself such as in The Motown Revue with Smokey Robinson. He was in a featured duet with Bruce Springsteen on the all-star charity single for African Famine Relief, "We Are the World", and he was part of another charity single the following year (1986), the AIDS-inspired "That's What Friends Are For". He also played the harmonica on the album Dreamland Express by John Denver in the song "If Ever", a song Wonder co-wrote with Stephanie Andrews. He also wrote the track "I Do Love You" for The Beach Boys' 1985 self-titled album. Stevie Wonder also played the harmonica on a track called "Can't Help Lovin' That Man" from "Showboat" on "The Broadway Album" by Barbra Streisand.

In 1986, Stevie Wonder appeared on The Cosby Show, as himself, in the episode "A Touch of Wonder".

In 1987, Wonder appeared on Michael Jackson's Bad album on the duet "Just Good Friends". Michael Jackson also sang a duet with him titled "Get It" on Wonder's 1987 album Characters. This was a minor hit single, as were "Skeletons" and "You Will Know". In the fall of 1988, Wonder duetted with Julio Iglesias on the hit single "My Love", which appeared on Iglesias' album Non Stop.^{[citation needed]}

Later career: 1991–2001[link]

Stevie Wonder at the Grammy Awards of 1990

After 1987's Characters LP, Wonder continued to release new material, but at a slower pace. He recorded a soundtrack album for Spike Lee's film Jungle Fever in 1991. From this album, singles and videos were released for "Gotta Have You" and "These Three Words". The B-side to the "Gotta Have You" single was "Feeding Off The Love Of The Land", which was played during the end credits of the movie Jungle Fever but was not included on the soundtrack. A piano and vocal version of "Feeding Off The Love Of The Land" was also released on the Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal compilation. It is rumored that "Feeding Off The Love Of The Land" was originally intended for release on Fulfillingness' First Finale Volume Two, a project that has never been confirmed as completed.

Conversation Peace and the live album Natural Wonder were also released in the 1990s. The former received its European launch at a high-profile March 1995 press conference in Paris, where Stevie mentioned how the tearing down of The Wall between East and West Berlin and the desire for a united Europe had played a significant part in the inspiration behind the album.^[31]

In 1994, Wonder made a guest appearance on the KISS cover album KISS My Ass: Classic KISS Regrooved, playing harmonica and supplying background vocals for the song "Deuce", performed by Lenny Kravitz.

In 1996, Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life was selected as a documentary subject for the Classic Albums documentary series. This series dedicates 60 minutes to one groundbreaking record per feature. The same year, he performed John Lennon's song "Imagine" in the closing ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games.^[32] The same year, Wonder performed in a remix of "Seasons of Love" from the Jonathan Larson musical Rent.^[33]

In 1997, Wonder collaborated with Babyface for a song about abuse (domestic violence) called "How Come, How Long" which was nominated for an award.^{[citation needed]}

In December 1999, Wonder announced that he was interested in pursuing an intraocular retinal prosthesis to partially restore his sight.^[34] That same year, Wonder was featured on harmonica in the Sting song "Brand New Day".^[35]

In 2000, Stevie Wonder contributed two new songs to the soundtrack for Spike Lee's Bamboozled album ("Misrepresented People" and "Some Years Ago").^[36]

Current career: 2002–present[link]

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In March 2002, Wonder performed at the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Paralympics in Salt Lake City.^[37]

On July 2, 2005, Wonder performed in the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia.^[38]

Wonder's first new album in ten years, A Time to Love, was released on October 18, 2005, after having been pushed back from first a May, and then a June release. The album was released electronically on September 27, 2005, exclusively on Apple's iTunes Music Store. The first single, "So What the Fuss", was released in April. A second single, "From the Bottom of My Heart" was a hit on adult-contemporary R&B radio. The album also featured a duet with India.Arie on the title track "A Time to Love".

Wonder performed at the pre-game show for Super Bowl XL in Detroit in early 2006, singing various hit singles (with his four-year-old son on drums) and accompanying Aretha Franklin during "The Star Spangled Banner".

Stevie Wonder at a conference in Salvador, Brazil, in July 2006

In March 2006, Wonder received new national exposure on the top-rated American Idol television program. Wonder performed "My Love Is on Fire" (from A Time To Love) live on the show itself. In June 2006, Stevie Wonder made a guest appearance on Busta Rhymes' new album, The Big Bang on the track "Been through the Storm". He sings the refrain and plays the piano on the Dr. Dre and Sha Money XL produced track. He appeared again on the last track of Snoop Dogg's new album Tha Blue Carpet Treatment, "Conversations". The song is a remake of "Have a Talk with God" from Songs in the Key of Life.

In 2006, Wonder staged a duet with Andrea Bocelli on the latter's album Amore, offering harmonica and additional vocals on "Canzoni Stonate". Stevie Wonder also performed at Washington, D.C.'s 2006 "A Capitol Fourth" celebration.

On August 2, 2007, Stevie Wonder announced the A Wonder Summer's Night 13 concert tour—his first U.S. tour in over ten years. This tour was inspired by the recent passing of his mother, as he stated at the conclusion of the tour on December 9 at the Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona.

Wonder performs during the final day of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

On August 28, 2008, Wonder performed at the Democratic National Convention at Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado. Songs included a previously unreleased song, "Fear Can't Put Dreams to Sleep," and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours".^[39]

On September 8, 2008, Wonder started the European leg of his Wonder Summer's Night Tour, the first time he had toured Europe in over a decade. His opening show was at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. During the tour, Wonder played eight UK gigs; four at The O2 Arena in London, two in Birmingham and two at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester. Stevie Wonder's other stops in the tour's European leg also found him performing in Holland (Rotterdam), Sweden (Stockholm), Germany (Cologne, Mannheim and Munich), Norway (Hamar), France (Paris), Italy (Milan) and Denmark (Aalborg). Wonder also toured Australia (Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane) and New Zealand (Christchurch, Auckland and New Plymouth) in October and November.^[40]

By June 2008, Wonder was working on two projects simultaneously: a new album titled The Gospel Inspired By Lula which will deal with the various spiritual and cultural crises facing the world, and Through The Eyes Of Wonder, an album which Wonder has described as a performance piece that will reflect his experience as a blind man. Wonder was also keeping the door open for a collaboration with Tony Bennett and Quincy Jones concerning a rumored jazz album.^[41] If Wonder was to join forces with Bennett, it would not be for the first time; Their rendition of "For Once in My Life" earned them a Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals in 2006.^[17] Wonder's harmonica playing can be heard on the 2009 Grammy-nominated "Never Give You Up" featuring CJ Hilton and Raphael Saadiq.^[42]

Wonder is presented the Gershwin Award for Lifetime Achievement by United States president Barack Obama.

Wonder performed on January 18, 2009 at the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, Wonder performed the song "Brand New Day" with musician Sting. He performed his new song "All About the Love Again" and, with other musical artists, "Signed, Sealed & Delivered". On February 23, 2009, Wonder became the second recipient of the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for pop music, honored by President Barack Obama at the White House.^[43]

On July 7, 2009, Wonder performed "Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer" and "They Won't Go When I Go" at the Staples Center for Michael Jackson's memorial service.^[44] On October 29, 2009, Wonder performed at the 25th anniversary concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Among songs with B.B. King, Wonder performed Michael Jackson's 'The Way You Make Me Feel', during which he became distraught and was unable to continue until he regained his composure.

Wonder at the October 16, 2011 Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial dedication concert

On January 22, 2010, Wonder performed Bridge Over Troubled Water for the Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief event to help victims of the earthquake in Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010.

On March 6, 2010, Wonder was awarded the Commander of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand. Wonder had been due to receive this award in 1981, but scheduling problems prevented this from happening. A lifetime achievement award was also given to Wonder on the same day, at France's biggest music awards.^[45]

His 2010 tour included a two-hour set at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee,^[46] a stop at London's "Hard Rock Calling" in Hyde Park, and appearances at England's Glastonbury Festival, Rotterdam's North Sea Jazz Festival, and a concert in Bergen, Norway and a concert in Dublin, Ireland at the O2 Arena on June 24.

In February 2011, the Apollo Theater announced that Stevie Wonder will be the next in line for the Apollo Legends Hall of Fame. The theater said that the singer will be inducted into the New York City institution's Hall of Fame in five months.^[47]

On June 25, 2011, Wonder performed at the opening ceremony of the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Greece.^[48] On January 28, 2012, Wonder and Christina Aguilera gave a musical tribute at Etta James' funeral. Wonder played "Shelter in the Rain" and The Lord's Prayer while while Aguilera sang "At Last."^[49]

Wonder performed at the February 19, 2012 memorial service for Whitney Houston at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. He changed some of the lyrics of his song Ribbon in the Sky in dedication to Ms. Houston.^[50]

Legacy[link]

A prominent figure in popular music during the latter half of the 20th century, Wonder has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and won twenty-two Grammy Awards^[17] (the most ever won by a solo artist) as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also won an Academy Award for Best Song,^[51] and been inducted into both the Rock and Roll^[52] and Songwriters^[53] halls of fame. He has also been awarded the Polar Music Prize.^[54] American music magazine Rolling Stone named him the ninth greatest singer of all time.^[55][56] In June 2009 he became the fourth artist to receive the Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award.^[57] Stevie Wonder was voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends online Hall of Fame in 2005.^[58] His hit recording of "Superstition" was selected as a Legendary Michigan Song in 2010.^[59]

He has ten U.S. number-one hits on the pop charts as well as 20 R&B number one hits, and album sales totaling more than 100 million units. Wonder has recorded several critically acclaimed albums and hit singles, and writes and produces songs for many of his label mates and outside artists as well. Wonder plays the piano, synthesizer, harmonica, congas, drums, bass guitar, bongos, organ, melodica, and clavinet. In his childhood, he was best known for his harmonica work, but today he is better known for his keyboard skills and vocal ability. Wonder was the first Motown artist and second African American musician to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song for his 1984 hit single "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from the movie The Woman in Red.^{[citation needed]}

Classic period[link]

Wonder's "classic period" is generally agreed to consist of the concept albums^[60] he created in the early- to mid-1970s, peaking in 1976.^[61] Some observers see in 1971's Where I'm Coming From certain indications of the beginning of the classic period, such as its new funky keyboard style which Wonder used throughout the classic period.^[61] Some determine Wonder's first "classic" album to be 1972's Music of My Mind, on which he attained personal control of production, and on which he programmed a series of songs integrated with one another to make a concept album.^[61] Others skip over early 1972 and determine the beginning of the classic period to be Talking Book in late 1972,^[62] the album in which Wonder "hit his stride".^[61]

Impact[link]

Wonder's songs are renowned for being quite difficult to sing. He has a very developed sense of harmony and uses many extended chords utilizing extensions such as ninths, elevenths, thirteenths, diminished fifths, etc. in his compositions. Many of his melodies make abrupt, unpredictable changes. Many of his vocal melodies are also melismatic, meaning that a syllable is sung over several notes. Some of his best known and most frequently covered songs are played in keys which are more often found in jazz than in pop and rock. For example, "Superstition", "Higher Ground" and "I Wish" are in the key of E flat minor, and feature distinctive riffs in the E flat minor pentatonic scale (i.e. largely on the black notes of the keyboard).^{[citation needed]}

Wonder played a large role in bringing synthesizers to the forefront of popular music. He developed many new textures and sounds never heard before.^{[citation needed]} In 1981, Wonder became the first owner of an E-mu Emulator.^[63]

Songs sampled by other musicians[link]

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Wonder has recorded with Jon Gibson, a Christian Soul musician, on a remake of his own song, "Have a Talk With God" (from the 1989 album Body & Soul), covered by Gibson in which Wonder plays harmonica.^[64] The two men met in the early 1980s through a shared music agent (Bill Wolfer).^[65]

Red Hot Chili Peppers covered "Higher Ground" in 1989 on their Mother's Milk album. Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble covered "Superstition" and Wonder made a cameo appearance in the official music video for the song.^{[citation needed]}

De La Soul sampled "Hey Love" in their song "Talkin' Bout Hey Love" on their 1991 album De La Soul Is Dead.

"Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing" was rendered by English band Incognito in 1992 and John Legend covered this song for the 2005 film, Hitch. George Michael and Mary J. Blige covered "As" in the late 1990s. In 1999, Salomé de Bahia made a Brazilian version of "Another Star". Tupac Shakur sampled "That Girl" for his hit song "So Many Tears".^{[citation needed]}

"Pastime Paradise" would become an interpolation for Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" while Will Smith would use "I Wish" as the basis for the theme song to his movie, Wild Wild West. The elements of "Love's In Need of Love Today" were used by 50 Cent in the song "Ryder Music", and Warren G sampled "Village Ghetto Land" for his song "Ghetto Village".^{[citation needed]}

Mary Mary did a cover of his song "You Will Know" on their 2002 album, Incredible. Australian soul artist Guy Sebastian recorded a cover of "I Wish" on his Beautiful Life album. In 2003, Raven-Symoné recorded a cover of "Superstition" for the soundtrack to Disney's The Haunted Mansion. In 2005, Canadian singer Dave Moffatt, from the group The Moffatts, sang the song "Overjoyed" from the In Square Circle album on Canadian Idol. Clay Aiken performed "Isn't She Lovely?" in the episode "My Life in Four Cameras" of Scrubs.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

Wonder has been married twice: to Motown singer Syreeta Wright from 1970 until their divorce in 1972; and since 2001, to fashion designer Kai Millard Morris.^[66] He has seven children from his two marriages and several relationships.^[66]

Stevie met Yolanda Simmons when she applied for a job as his secretary for his publishing company.^[67] Simmons bore Wonder a daughter on February 2, 1975: Aisha Morris.^[68][69]) According to Stevie, the name Aisha is "African for strength and intelligence".^[67] After she was born, Stevie said "she was the one thing that I needed in my life and in my music for a long time.^[67] It was this in mind, she was the inspiration for his hit single "Isn't She Lovely." Aisha Morris is a singer who has toured with her father and accompanied him on recordings, including his 2005 album, A Time 2 Love. Wonder has two sons with Kai Millard Morris; the older is named Kailand and he occasionally performs as a drummer on stage with his father. The younger son, Mandla Kadjay Carl Stevland Morris, was born May 13, 2005, his father's 55th birthday.^[66] In May 2006, Wonder's mother died in Los Angeles, at the age of 76. During his September 8, 2008 UK concert in Birmingham, he spoke of his decision to begin touring again following his loss. "I want to take all the pain that I feel and celebrate and turn it around."^[70]

Wonder's Taxi Productions owns Los Angeles radio station KJLH.

Charting discography[link]

Top 40 singles[link]

U.S. and UK albums[link]

Awards and recognition[link]

Grammy Awards[link]

Wonder has won 22 Grammy Awards:^[17] as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award which he was presented in 1996.^[74]

• From 1965 to 1980 a self-produced artist received one GRAMMY Award as an artist and an additional one as a producer in the Record of the Year and Album of the Year categories

Other awards and recognition[link]

• 1983: inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame.^[53]
• 1984: received an Academy Award for Best Song for "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from the movie The Woman in Red.^[51]
• 1989: inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[52]
• 1999: received the Polar Music Prize^[54] and Kennedy Center Honors.^[76]
• 2002: received the George and Ira Gershwin Lifetime Achievement Award at UCLA's Spring Sing.^[77] The same year, Wonder received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.^[78]
• 2004: received the Billboard Century Award.^[79] Also in 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock and Roll Artists of All Time.^[80]
• 2006: was inducted, as one of the first inductees, into the Michigan Walk of Fame.^[81] The same year, Wonder received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.^[82]
• 2008: Ranked at number five on "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists", making him as the third most successful male artist in the history of Billboard Hot 100 chart.^[83]
• 2009: Recipient of the second Gershwin Prize For Popular Song.^[84]
• 2009: Recipient of the Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award.^[57] This special award underlines a popular artist’s extraordinary contribution to the musical world. The Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award is in bronze.
• 2009: Named a Messenger of Peace by the United Nations.^[5]

See also[link]

	Book: Stevie Wonder
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• Best selling music artists
• List of number-one hits (United States)
• List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones
• List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Stevie Wonder

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Stevie Wonder

• Official site
• Stevie Wonder at the Internet Movie Database
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Stevie Wonder collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Stevie Wonder in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Never That Simple: Stevie Wonder—By Robert Christgau

Ray Charles
Ray Charles in 1990
Background information
Birth name	Ray Charles
Born	(1930-09-23)September 23, 1930 Albany, Georgia, United States
Origin	Greenville, Florida, United States
Died	June 10, 2004(2004-06-10) (aged 73) Beverly Hills, California, United States
Genres	Rhythm and blues, soul, blues, soul blues, rock and roll, jazz, vocal jazz, country, pop, gospel
Occupations	Composer, musician, arranger, bandleader
Instruments	Vocals, piano, keyboards, alto saxophone, trombone
Years active	1947–2004
Labels	Atlantic, ABC, Warner Bros., Swing Time, Concord, Columbia, Flashback
Associated acts	The Raelettes, Quincy Jones, Betty Carter, Marvin Gaye, Billy Joel, James Brown, Little Richard
Website	Official website

Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records.^[1][2][3] He also helped racially integrate country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his Modern Sounds albums.^[4][5][6] While with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company.^[2] Frank Sinatra called Charles “the only true genius in show business.”

The influences upon his music were mainly jazz, blues, rhythm and blues and country artists of the day such as Art Tatum, Nat King Cole, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, Louis Armstrong. His playing reflected influences from country blues and barrelhouse, and stride piano styles.

Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on their list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2004,^[7] and number two on their November 2008 list of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".^[8] In honoring Charles, Billy Joel noted: "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. I don't know if Ray was the architect of rock & roll, but he was certainly the first guy to do a lot of things . . . Who the hell ever put so many styles together and made it work?"^[9]

Early life: 1930–1945[link]

Ray Charles Robinson was the son of Aretha Robinson, a sharecropper, and Bailey Robinson, a railroad repair man, mechanic and handyman.^[10] Aretha Robinson was a devout Christian and the family attended the New Shiloh Baptist Church.^[11] When Ray was an infant, his family moved from Albany, Georgia, where he was born, to the poor black community on the western side of Greenville, Florida. In his early years, Charles showed a curiosity for mechanical things and he often watched the neighborhood men working on their cars and farm machinery. His musical curiosity was sparked at Mr. Wiley Pit's Red Wing Cafe when Pit played boogie woogie on an old upright piano. Pit would care for George, Ray's brother, so as to take the burden off Williams. However, George drowned in the Williams' bath tub when he was four years old.^{[citation needed]} After witnessing the death of his brother, Ray would feel an overwhelming sense of guilt later on in life.

Charles started to lose his sight at the age of five. He went completely blind by the age of seven, apparently due to glaucoma.^[12][13] He attended school at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine from 1937 to 1945,^[14] where he developed his musical talent.^[12] During this time he performed on WFOY radio in St. Augustine. His father died when he was 10 and his mother died five years after.

In school, Charles was taught only classical music, but he wanted to play the jazz and blues he heard on the family radio.^[14] While at school, he became the school's premier musician. On Fridays, the South Campus Literary Society held assemblies where Charles would play piano and sing popular songs. On Halloween and Washington's birthday, the Colored Department of the school had socials where Charles would play. It was here he established "RC Robinson and the Shop Boys" and sang his own arrangement of "Jingle Bell Boogie."^[15] He spent his first Christmas at the school, but later the staff pitched in so that Charles could return to Greenville, as he did each summer.

Henry and Alice Johnson, who owned a store not unlike Mr. Pit's store in Greenville, moved to the French town section of Tallahassee, just west of Greenville; and they, as well as Freddy and Margaret Bryant, took Charles in. He worked the register in the Bryants' store under the direction of Lucille Bryant, their daughter. It's said he loved Tallahassee and often used the drug store delivery boy's motorbike to run up and down hills using the exhaust sound of a friend's bike to guide him. Charles found Tallahassee musically exciting too and sat in with the Florida A&M University student band. He played with the Adderley brothers, Nat and Cannonball, and began playing gigs with Lawyer Smith and his Band in 1943 at the Red Bird Club and Deluxe Clubs in Frenchtown and roadhouse theaters around Tallahassee, as well as the Governor's Ball.^[16]

Career[link]

Early career: 1946–1952[link]

After his mother died in 1946, Charles was 15 years old and didn't return to school. He lived in Jacksonville with a couple who were friends of his mother. For over a year, he played the piano for bands at the Ritz Theatre in LaVilla, earning $4 a night. Then he moved to Orlando, and later Tampa, where he played with a southern band called The Florida Playboys. This is where he began his habit of always wearing sunglasses, made by designer Billy Stickles.^[17]

Charles had always played for other people, but he wanted his own band. He decided to leave Florida for a large city, but Chicago and New York City were too big. After asking a friend to look in a map and note the city in the United States that was farthest from Florida, he moved to Seattle in 1947^[12] (where he first met and befriended, under the tutelage of Robert Blackwell, a 14-year-old Quincy Jones)^[18][19] and soon started recording, first for the Down Beat label as the Maxin Trio with guitarist G.D. McKee and bassist Milton Garrett, achieving his first hit with "Confession Blues" in 1949. The song soared to No. 2 on the R&B charts. He joined Swing Time Records and under his own name ("Ray Charles" to avoid being confused with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson)^[10] recorded two more R&B hits, "Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand" (No. 5) in 1951 and "Kissa Me Baby" (No. 8) in 1952. The following year, Swing Time folded and Ahmet Ertegün signed him to Atlantic Records.^[12]

Atlantic Records: 1953–1958[link]

Charles laid low from recording until early 1953 as Atlantic executives cleared out Charles' contract with Swingtime. Charles began recording jump blues and boogie-woogie style recordings as well as slower blues ballads where he continued to show the vocal influences of Nat "King" Cole and Charles Brown. "Mess Around" became Charles' first Atlantic hit in 1953 and he later had hits the following year with "It Should Have Been Me" and "Don't You Know". He also recorded the songs, "Midnight Hour" and "Sinner's Prayer". Some elements of his own vocal style showed up in "Sinner's Prayer", "Mess Around" and "Don't You Know".

Late in 1954, Charles recorded his own composition, "I Got a Woman" and the song became Charles' first number-one R&B hit in 1955 and brought him to national prominence.^[20] The elements of "I Got a Woman" included a mixture of gospel, jazz and blues elements that would later prove to be seminal in the development of rock 'n' roll and soul music. He repeated this pattern throughout 1955 continuing through 1958 with records such as "This Little Girl of Mine", "Drown in My Own Tears", "Lonely Avenue", "A Fool For You" and "The Night Time (Is the Right Time)".

However, Charles didn't stop his ambitions of jazz recording a couple of instrumental jazz albums with vibraphonist Milt Jackson while also promoting his R&B career. By 1958, Charles was not only headlining black venues such as The Apollo Theater and The Uptown Theater but also bigger venues such as The Newport Jazz Festival. It was at the Newport festival where he cut his first live album. In 1956, Charles recruited a young all-female singing group named the Cookies, and reshaped them as The Raelettes. Before then, Charles had used his wife and other musicians to back him up on recordings such as "This Little Girl of Mine" and "Drown In My Own Tears". The Raelettes' first recording session with Charles was on the bluesy-gospel inflected "Leave My Woman Alone".

Crossover success: 1959–1967[link]

Charles in 1971. Photo: Heinrich Klaffs.

Charles reached the pinnacle of his success at Atlantic with the release of "What'd I Say", a complex song that combined gospel, jazz, blues and Latin music and a song that Charles would later say he composed spontaneously as he was performing in clubs and dances with his small band. Despite some radio stations banning the song because of its sexually suggestive lyrics, the song became a crossover top ten pop record, Charles' first record to do so.^[21] Later in 1959, Charles recorded and released his first country song, a cover of Hank Snow's "Movin' On", and had recorded three more albums for the label including a jazz record (later released in 1961 as The Genius After Hours), a blues record (released in 1961 as The Genius Sings the Blues) and a traditional pop/big band record (The Genius of Ray Charles). The Genius of Ray Charles provided his first top 40 album entry where it peaked at #17 and was later held as a landmark record in Charles' career but Charles saw a bigger opportunity following his Atlantic contract expiring in the fall of 1959 when several big labels offered him record deals.

Choosing not to renegotiate his contract with Atlantic, Ray Charles signed with ABC-Paramount Records in November 1959, obtaining a much more liberal contract than other artists had at the time.^[22] Following the success of "What'd I Say" and The Genius of Ray Charles, ABC offered Charles a $ 50,000 annual advance, higher royalties than previously offered and eventual ownership of his masters — a very valuable and lucrative deal at the time.^[23] During his Atlantic years, Charles was heralded for his own inventive compositions, however, by the time of the release of the instrumental jazz LP Genius + Soul = Jazz (1960) for ABC's subsidiary label Impulse!, Charles had virtually given up on writing original material and had begun to follow his eclectic impulses as an interpreter.^[21]

With his first hit single for ABC-Paramount, Charles received national acclaim and a Grammy Award for the Sid Feller-produced "Georgia on My Mind", originally written by composers Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael, released as a single by Charles in 1960.^[21][24] The song served as Charles's first work with Feller, who arranged and conducted the recording. Charles also earned another Grammy for the follow-up "Hit the Road Jack", written by R&B singer Percy Mayfield.^[25] By late 1961, Charles had expanded his small road ensemble to a full-scale big band, partly as a response to increasing royalties and touring fees, becoming one of the few black artists to crossover into mainstream pop with such a level of creative control.^[21][26] This success, however, came to a momentary halt in November 1961, as a police search of Charles's hotel room in Indianapolis, Indiana during a concert tour led to the discovery of heroin in his medicine cabinet. The case was eventually dropped, as the search lacked a proper warrant by the police, and Charles soon returned his focus on music and recording.^[26]

The 1962 album, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music and its sequel Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vol. 2, helped to bring country into the mainstream of music. His version of the Don Gibson song, I Can't Stop Loving You topped the Pop chart for five weeks and stayed at No. 1 R&B for ten weeks in 1962. It also gave him his only number one record in the UK. In 1962, he founded his own record label, Tangerine Records, which ABC-Paramount promoted and distributed.^[27][28] He also had major pop hits in 1963 with "Busted" (US No. 4) and Take These Chains From My Heart (US No. 8). With the rise of younger soul performers such as James Brown, Otis Redding and Motown singers such as Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and its own blind artist, Stevie Wonder, Charles' successes on the pop and R&B charts peaked after 1964 though he remained a huge concert draw.

Later years: 1967-2004[link]

1972 meeting of President Nixon and Ray Charles taken by Oliver F. Atkins

By 1967, Charles' commercial success had begun peaking on both pop and R&B charts though he would remain a concert draw both in the states and overseas. In 1965, Charles' career after being arrested for a third time for heroin halted after he agreed to go to rehab to avoid jail time. Charles kicked his habit at a clinic in Los Angeles. After spending a year on parole, Charles reemerged on the charts in 1966 with a series of hits composed with the fledgling team of Ashford & Simpson including the dance number, "I Don't Need No Doctor" (later covered in a hard rock style by British supergroup Humble Pie), "Let's Go Get Stoned", which became his first #1 R&B hit in several years, and "Crying Time", which reached #6 on the pop chart and later helped Charles win a Grammy Award the following March.

In 1967, he had a top twenty hit with another ballad, "Here We Go Again".^[29] Charles' renewed chart success, however, proved to be short lived and by the late 1960s his music was rarely played on radio stations partly due to the rise of psychedelic rock and harder forms of rock and R&B music and also due to Charles choosing to record pop standards and covers of then-modern day rock and soul hits as he had no desire to write due to him earning masters. Most of his recordings between 1966 and 1973 were either received well or poorly.^[12] Nonetheless, Charles continued to have an active recording career. Charles' 1972 album, Message from the People, included his unique gospel-influenced version of "America the Beautiful". In 1974, he left ABC Records and recorded several albums on his own Crossover Records label. His 1975 recording of Stevie Wonder's hit, "Living for the City" later helped Charles win another Grammy.

In 1977, he reunited with Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler and re-signed to Atlantic Records where he recorded the album, True to Life. However, the label had now begun focusing on rock acts and some of the label's prominent soul artists such as Aretha Franklin were starting to be neglected. Charles stayed with his old label until 1980. In November 1977 he appeared as the host of NBC's Saturday Night Live.^[30] In April of 1979, Charles' version of "Georgia On My Mind" was proclaimed the state song of Georgia. An emotional Charles performed the song on the floor of the state legislature.^[12] Though he notably supported the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1960s, Charles would be criticized for performing at South Africa's Sun City resort in 1981 during an international boycott of its apartheid policy.^[12] In 1983, Charles signed a contract with Columbia Records and recorded a string of country albums. Charles also began having a string of country hits often with duet singers such as George Jones, Chet Atkins, B.J. Thomas, Mickey Gilley, Hank Williams, Jr. and lifelong friend Willie Nelson, for which he recorded the #1 country duet, "Seven Spanish Angels". After 1987, his Columbia contract ended and Charles returned to recording pop music after signing with Warner Bros. Records. Prior to the release of his first Warner release, Would You Believe, Charles made a return on the R&B charts with a cover of The Brothers Johnson's "I'll Be Good to You", a duet with his lifelong buddy Quincy Jones and singer Chaka Khan. The song hit number-one on the R&B charts in 1990 and won Charles and Khan a Grammy for their dual work. Prior to this, Charles returned on the pop charts in another duet, with singer Billy Joel on the song, "Baby Grand" and in 1989, recorded a cover of the Southern All Stars' "Itoshi no Ellie", releasing it as "Ellie My Love" for a Japanese TV ad for Suntory releasing it in Japan where it reached #3 on its Oricon chart.^[31] Charles' 1993 album, My World became his first album in some time to reach the Billboard 200 and his cover of Leon Russell's "A Song for You" gave him a charted hit on the adult contemporary chart as well as his twelfth and final Grammy he would receive in his lifetime.

By the beginning of the 1980s, Charles would reach younger audiences by appearances in various films and TV shows. In 1980, he made a cameo on the film, The Blues Brothers. While he never appeared on the show, Charles' version of "Night Time is the Right Time" was played during the popular "Cosby Show" episode, "Happy Anniversary". In 1985, he appeared among a slew of other popular musicians in the USA for Africa charity recording, "We Are the World". Charles' popularity increased among younger audiences in 1991 after he appeared where he popularized the catchphrase "You Got the Right One, Baby" The catchphrase came from a song that was composed by Kenny Ascher, Joseph C. Caro and Helary Jay Lipsitz.^[32]

Charles with President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan in 1984.

Charles also appeared at two Presidential inaugurations in his lifetime. In 1985, he performed for Ronald Reagan's second inauguration, and in 1993 for Bill Clinton's first.^[33] In the late 1980s/early 1990s, Charles made appearances on the Super Dave Osbourne TV show, where he performed and appeared in a few vignettes where he was somehow driving a car, often as Super Dave's chauffeur. During the sixth season of Designing Women, Charles sang "Georgia on My Mind", instead of the song being rendered instrumentally by other musicians as in the previous five seasons. He also appeared in 4 episodes of the popular TV comedy The Nanny in Seasons 4 & 5 (1997 & 1998) as 'Sammy', in one episode singing "My Yiddish Mamma" to December romance and later fiancee of character Gramma Yetta, played by veteran actress Ann Guilbert. From 2001-2002, Charles appeared in commercials for the New Jersey Lottery to promote its "For every dream, there's a jackpot" campaign.

In 2003, Ray Charles headlined the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C. where the President, First Lady, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice attended. He also presented one of his greatest admirers, Van Morrison, with his award upon being inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the two sang Morrison's song "Crazy Love". This performance appears on Morrison's 2007 album, The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3. In 2003 Charles performed "Georgia On My Mind" and "America the Beautiful" at a televised annual electronic media journalist banquet held in Washington, D.C. His final public appearance came on April 30, 2004, at the dedication of his music studio as a historic landmark in the city of Los Angeles.^[12]

Personal life[link]

Family[link]

Charles was married twice and had 12 children with nine different women.^[34][35] His first marriage to Eileen Williams was brief: July 31, 1951 to 1952. He had three children from his second marriage, to Della Beatrice Howard Robinson from April 5, 1955 to April 26, 1977. His long term girlfriend and partner at the time of his death was Norma Pinella. His first child, Evelyn, was born in 1950 to girlfriend Louise Mitchell. His three children with Della, Ray Charles, Jr., David and Robert, were born in 1955, 1958 and 1960 respectively. Another son, Charles Wayne, was born in 1959 during his six-year long affair with original Raelettes vocalist Margie Hendricks. In 1961, a daughter, Raenee, was born during an affair with Mae Mosely Lyles. Two years later, in 1963, Charles and Sandra Jean Betts welcomed daughter Sheila Raye Charles Robinson.^[36] In 1966, a daughter named Alicia was born by a woman who remains unidentified to this day, followed by another daughter, Alexandra, born to a woman named Chantal Bertrand. Charles' next child, Vincent, came from a relationship with Arlette Kotchounian following his divorce from Della Howard in 1977. A year later, daughter Robyn was born to a woman named Gloria Moffett. Charles' youngest child, son Ryan Corey, was born in 1987 to Mary Anne den Bok.

Charles gave 10 of his 12 children checks for one million USD in December 2002 at a family luncheon, while the other two could not make it.^[37]

Substance abuse and legal issues[link]

On November 14, 1961, Charles was arrested on a narcotics charge in an Indiana hotel room, where he waited to perform. The detectives seized heroin, marijuana, and other items. Charles, then 31, stated that he had been a drug addict since the age of 16. While the case was dismissed because of the manner in which the evidence was obtained,^[38] Charles's situation did not improve until a few years later. Individuals such as Quincy Jones and Reverend Henry Griffin felt that those around Charles were responsible for his drug use.

By 1964 Charles' drug addiction caught up with him and he was arrested for possession of marijuana and heroin. Following a self-imposed stay^[38] at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California, Charles received five years' probation. Charles responded to the saga of his drug use and reform with the songs "I Don't Need No Doctor", "Let's Go Get Stoned", and the release of his first album since having kicked his heroin addiction in 1966, Crying Time.^[39][40]

Other interests[link]

Charles played chess using a special board with holes for the pieces and raised squares.^[41] Charles referred to Willie Nelson as "my chess partner" in a 1991 concert.^[42] In 2002, he played and lost to American Grandmaster and former U.S. Champion Larry Evans.^[43]

Death[link]

Charles died on June 10, 2004 at 11:35 a.m. of liver disease at his home in Beverly Hills, California, surrounded by family and friends.^[44][45] He was 73 years old. His body was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery.

Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Blvd.

His final album, Genius Loves Company, released two months after his death, consists of duets with various admirers and contemporaries: B.B. King, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, James Taylor, Gladys Knight, Michael McDonald, Natalie Cole, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, and Johnny Mathis. The album won eight Grammy Awards, including five for Ray Charles for Best Pop Vocal Album, Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Here We Go Again" with Norah Jones, and Best Gospel Performance for "Heaven Help Us All" with Gladys Knight; he also received nods for his duets with Elton John and B.B. King. The album included a version of Harold Arlen's "Over the Rainbow", sung as a duet by Charles and Johnny Mathis; this record was played at his memorial service.^[46]

Two more posthumous albums, Genius & Friends (2005) and Ray Sings, Basie Swings (2006), were released. Genius & Friends consisted of duets recorded from 1997 to 2005 with his choice of artists. Ray Sings, Basie Swings consists of archived vocals of Ray Charles from live mid-1970s performances added to new instrumental tracks specially recorded by the contemporary Count Basie Orchestra and other musicians. Charles's vocals recorded from the concert mixing board were added to new accompaniments to create a "fantasy concert" recording.

Legacy[link]

Charles possessed one of the most recognizable voices in American music. In the words of musicologist Henry Pleasants:

Sinatra, and Bing Crosby before him, had been masters of words. Ray Charles is a master of sounds. His records disclose an extraordinary assortment of slurs, glides, turns, shrieks, wails, breaks, shouts, screams and hollers, all wonderfully controlled, disciplined by inspired musicianship, and harnessed to ingenious subtleties of harmony, dynamics and rhythm... It is either the singing of a man whose vocabulary is inadequate to express what is in his heart and mind or of one whose feelings are too intense for satisfactory verbal or conventionally melodic articulation. He can’t tell it to you. He can’t even sing it to you. He has to cry out to you, or shout to you, in tones eloquent of despair — or exaltation. The voice alone, with little assistance from the text or the notated music, conveys the message.

Ray Charles is usually described as a baritone, and his speaking voice would suggest as much, as would the difficulty he experiences in reaching and sustaining the baritone's high E and F in a popular ballad. But the voice undergoes some sort of transfiguration under stress, and in music of gospel or blues character he can and does sing for measures on end in the high tenor range of A, B flat, B, C and ev in full voice, sometimes in an ecstatic head voice, sometimes in falsetto. In falsetto he continues up to E and F above high C. On one extraordinary record, "I’m Going Down to the River’ . . . he hits an incredible B flat . . . giving him an overall range, including the falsetto extension, of at least three octaves.^[47]

In 1979, Charles was one of the first of the Georgia State Music Hall of Fame to be recognized as a musician born in the state.^[48] Ray's version of "Georgia On My Mind" was made the official state song for Georgia.^[49] In 1981, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was one of the first inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural ceremony in 1986.^[50] He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986.^[51]

In 1987, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1991, he was inducted to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. In 1993, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.^[52] In 1998 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize together with Ravi Shankar in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2004 he was inducted to the Jazz Hall of Fame, and inducted to the National Black Sports & Entertainment Hall of Fame.^[53] The Grammy Awards of 2005 were dedicated to Charles.

On December 7, 2007, Ray Charles Plaza was opened in Albany, Georgia, with a revolving, lighted bronze sculpture of Charles seated at a piano. Later that month, on December 26, 2007, Ray Charles was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. He was also presented with the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, during the 1991 UCLA Spring Sing.^[54]

In 2003, Charles was awarded an honorary degree by Dillard University. Upon his death, he endowed a professorship of African-American culinary history at the school, which is the first such chair in the nation.^[55] A $20 million performing arts center at Morehouse College was named after Charles and was dedicated in September 2010.^[56]

The biopic Ray, released in October 2004, portrays his life and career between 1930 and 1979 and stars Jamie Foxx as Charles. Foxx won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Actor for the role.

Discography[link]

Filmography[link]

• Swingin' Along (1961)
• Ballad in Blue (1964)
• The Big T.N.T. Show (1966) (documentary)
• The Blues Brothers (1980)
• Who's The Boss (himself) 1987
• Limit Up (1989)
• Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones (1990) (documentary)
• Love Affair (1994)
• Spy Hard (1996)
• The Nanny (1999) as Sammy
• The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave (2000)
• Blue's Big Musical Movie (2000)
• Ray (2004)

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

	Book: Ray Charles
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ray Charles

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ray Charles

• Official website
• Article from the St. Augustine Record noting Charles' being on WFOY.
• Ray Charles - Daily Telegraph obituary
• Ray Charles discography at MusicBrainz
• Ray Charles at RollingStone
• Ray Charles at Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Ray Charles at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• Ray Charles at the Internet Movie Database
• Ray Charles at Allmusic
• Ray Charles discography at Discogs
• Ray Charles autobiography: The Early Years 1930–1960
• I Can't Stop Loving You: Ray Charles and Country Music - Past Exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
• Ray Charles's oral history video excerpts at the National Visionary Leadership Project
• Ray Charles interviewed on the Pop Chronicles (1969).