African+American+History+Month+ChrissyE09

Ray Charles

You don't have to be able to see to have seen what you have done.

When life puts a mountain infront of you, be optimistic and climb it because there's just going to be another mountain. IMAGES Description || Tell Purpose of the Story (and introduce the topic and person) || When life puts a mountain infront of you what do you do? You have to be optimistic and climb it because there's just going to another mountain. That's exaclty what Ray Charles did in his rise to fame. || [] []
 * http://flickr.com/photos/templarion/22441244/
 * http://flickr.com/photos/naosmyspinster/86698436/

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|| Ray's Childhood || When Ray was just 3 years old he began to show an interest in music. He was very inspired by the cafe owner in his town. When he was 7 he went to a school for the blind and deaf, but while he was there he also learned to arrange music in Braille and play the piano, organ, sax, clarinet, and trumpet. || || Becoming Blind || After Ray witnesed the drowning of his brother, he slowly began to lose his sight. By the time that Ray turned 7 he was fully blind. His mother didn't let him feel sorry for himself, so she taught him how to do things for himself and not be depedant on other people. ||
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|| Struggles of starting his carrer || It was around 1945 when Ray realized that he really wanted to make it in the music business, but for an African American in 1945, just starting in the music business needed a lot of courage. Even then the chances of making it weren't even measurable, for they were so small. || [] || his many hardships || When Ray had first started with his career in the music industry it was around the 1940's and there was a lot of segregation. The chances of becoming any where near famous was next to nothing. Forget being famous, you would be lucky to have anyone sign you. In the midst of all of this his mother died. He was just 15 years old when this happened. His mother was the person that taught him to never give up nomatter what life threw at him. With this problem Ray felt alone and turned to drugs, for about 20 years he did them, but he realized that they were just getting in the way of what he need to acomplish in his life and gave it up. || [] || First Sucess || After losing his mother, Ray relocated to Seattle, Washington. It was in the Seattle Red light district when he meet a young Quiny Jones. Ray, even though he was blind had taught Quincy how to write music. Ray didn't know it at the time, but Quincy was going to become a very famous music producer. Ray recorded his first three songs with him, but he wasn't a solo artist he was in a trio. || [] || His rise to fame || Ray soon went to Atlanta Records in 1952, where he was a solo artist. Ray didn't taste sucess until 1953 when he played a piano man on blue's man Slim's recording of **The Things I Used To Do**. That album sold more than 1 million copies. Ray released a solo record in 1954 and that album went to #1 on the R&B charts in 1955. Ray said that this is because he started to sing like him self instead of imitating Nat King Cole. Ray had many sucessful records, but in 1959 he got through to white Americans with the hit **What'd I Say.** It was clear that Ray was a huge musical sucess. || ||  || Now because of the sucess in his carrer with jazz, soulful, R&B, swing type of music Ray decided to try and reach out to another genre of music, and that genre of music was country western. Many of his fans were ashamed and many lost faith in the musician, but that didn't stop him from doing a country record. When the record was finally released it was a hit and Ray was happy that he didn't give up on what he really wanted to do. ||  ||   ||   || http://flickr.com/photos/planetschwa/2876554386/ || Achievements || By the time that Ray had died in 2004 he had recieved tweleve Grammys, three Emmy nominations. Also, Charles had recieved a Kennedy Center Honors. That was a great achievement for him. He also had a Grammy Life Time Achievement Award. He was also inducted into the Rock, Jazz, and R&B hall of fame. These achievements are great for someone who grew up poor, blind, and African American during a time of poverty and severe racsism and segregation. ||
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 * [|http://flickr.com/photos/cc_chapman/399146430/]
 * http://flickr.com/photos/steverob50pics/2387075668/
 * || Restate the purpose || So as you can see Ray climbed many a mountain in his life time. If he didn't do the things that he did he wouldn't have been nearly as famous as he was and still is today. ||

http://www.swingmusic.net/Ray_Charles_Biography.html http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0614-06.htm http://broadwayworld.com/upload/32355/emmyaward.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3103/2885674917_9c941760cd.jpg?v=0 http://hiphop.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/grammy.jpg