Ray Charles Quotes

If somebody don't like something that I do, that's his or her prerogative. Just like it's mine. ~ Ray Charles

I was one of I think three white girls in my school. So, I was very much an outsider. And plus I was Jewish and all of my friends were black and Baptist because they listen to the coolest music. We were all listening to Ray Charles and what was then called race music. ~ Janis Ian

All my life I've always been so blue, born to lose, and now I'm losing you. ~ Ray Charles

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man. ~ Ray Charles

breath,
life after seven decades plus three years
is a lot of breathing. seventy three years on this
earth is a lot of taking in and giving out, is a
life of coming from somewhere and for many a bunch
of going nowhere.

how do we celebrate a poet who has created
music with words for over fifty years, who has
showered magic on her people, who has redefined
poetry into a black world exactness
thereby giving the universe an insight into
darkroads?

just say she interprets beauty and wants to
give life, say she is patient with phoniness
and doesn't mind people calling her gwen or sister.
say she sees the genius in our children, is visionary
about possibilities, sees as clearly as ray charles and
stevie wonder, hears like determined elephants looking
for food. say that her touch is fine wood, her memory
is like an african roadmap detailing adventure and
clarity, yet returning to chicago's south evans
to record the journey. say her voice is majestic
and magnetic as she speaks in poetry, rhythms, song
and spirited trumpets, say she is dark skinned,
melanin rich, small-boned, hurricane-willed,
with a mind like a tornado redefining the landscape.

life after seven decades plus three years
is a lot of breathing.
gwendolyn, gwen, sister g has
not disappointed our expectations.
in the middle
Haki R. Madhubuti

You have a problem, just ask yourself one simple question: What would Ray Charles do in a situation like this? ~ Howard Korder

Learning to read music in Braille & play by ear helped me develop a [very] good memory. ~ Ray Charles

My dad has always been a big Ray Charles fan, and I've grown up listening to all kinds of music. ~ Avicii

I'm proud of my mentors. Ray Charles is the strongest influence on me as a singer. ~ Michael Bolton

Musically, he was like an old man in a boy's skin. ~ Eric Clapton

There were a whole lot, I bought every blues record I could find, it wasn't just one or two people. My vocal influences were Ray Charles and Bobby Blue Bland. ~ Johnny Winter

Music to me is like breathing. I don't get tired of breathing, I don't get tired of music. ~ Ray Charles

I always say that I went to the College of Blossoms and the University of Ray Charles. ~ Merry Clayton

Music is powerful. As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond. ~ Ray Charles

I don't sing a song unless I feel it. The song don't tug at my heart, I pass on it. I have to believe in what I'm doing. ~ Ray Charles

This is a setback. You get back up, you dust yourself off, and you get back in the game. We had a great singer named Ray Charles who wrote a song called 'Drowning in My Tears.' You can't afford to drown in your tears. You gotta go back, rededicate yourself, redouble your efforts, and persevere. ~ Don King

Ray Charles, who said to Stevie Wonder, Maybe we're white. Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons

I know it sounds strange - a blind teenager buzzin' round on a motorcycle - but I liked that; that was me. I had always been nervy, and I always had a lot of faith in my ability not to break my neck. ~ Ray Charles

I don't think any of us really knows why we're here. But I think we're supposed to believe we're here for a purpose. ~ Ray Charles

You knew the difference between Barbra Streisand and Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, straight away. Now everyone sounds like each other, and I don't think that's right. ~ Bobby Womack

I'm a piano player. I never thought of myself as a singer, at all. I was always trying to sound like somebody else. I don't like my own voice, I like Ray Charles, Robert Plant, I like Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, people that have an edge in their voice. ~ Billy Joel

Many of the most accomplished people of our era were considered by experts to have no future. Jackson Pollock, Marcel Proust, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Lucille Ball, and Charles Darwin were all thought to have little potential for their chosen fields. ~ Carol S. Dweck

One day, I'll be listening to a bunch of Ray Charles, the next day it's nothing but Red Hot Chili Peppers. The next day it might be Tupac all day. ~ J. Cole

I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox. ~ Tom Waits

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village. downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking, talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues shout blind on the phonograph ~ Allen Ginsberg

I remember working with Ray Charles when I was quite young, and I would wonder, 'Why would he sing 'Georgia On My Mind' and 'I Can't Stop Loving You' every night?' I said, 'Oh my God if I have to sing these songs, if I have to sing 'I Can't Stop Loving You' one more night, I'm going to fall out.' Of course, I was young and I didn't understand. ~ Merry Clayton

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles. ~ Ahmet Ertegun

When I first heard Ray Charles, he was a flop artist on a small label in California. He hadn't sold any records. And I bought his contract for $2,500. ~ Ahmet Ertegun

Live each day like it's your last, 'cause one day you gonna be right ~ Ray Charles

Art Tatum
he was a genius. And Einstein, not me. ~ Ray Charles

When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles. ~ Daryl Hall

Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together. You got some sugar and I don't; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour; well, I'll give you some of mine. ~ Ray Charles

I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't been able to hear. ~ Ray Charles

God bless Ray Charles. It was such an honor to meet him and sing with him and actually just to watch him sing from just two feet away. ~ Norah Jones

I was born with music inside me ~ Ray Charles

When Ray Charles is concentrating he's like a piece of granite, nothing twitches, nothing, ... He sat for 25 minutes solid like that, like a stone, and I thought, 'Oh my God, if he doesn't like it I'm dead.' ... And then finally, after 25 minutes he started to talk back to the screen. I heard him say 'That's right. That's the truth.' . ~ Taylor Hackford

Never mind the transience of show business and popularity. When we hear Ray Charles, we go, 'That's a great singer.' You don't need a reporter or a writer to tell us. Good is good and it should shine through the years. ~ Art Garfunkel

I'd like to think that when I sing a song, I can let you know all about the heartbreak, struggle, lies and kicks in the ass I've gotten over the years for being black and everything else, without actually saying a word about it. ~ Ray Charles

Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice. ~ Taylor Hackford

I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. ~ Ray Charles

Absolutely, I grew up listening to soul music. People like Stevie, Aretha, Ray Charles, Michael and Prince. My parents' record collection was all I had when I was a little kid. If it wasn't that, it was something else in their collection. ~ Jesse McCartney

Everyone felt like they knew Ray Charles and in a way they did, because he was embodied by his music. ~ Ahmet Ertegun

There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz. ~ Robert Wyatt

Even though I'm not Jewish ... Israel is one of the few causes I feel good about supporting. ~ Ray Charles

It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good. ~ Ray Charles

There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, 'If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.' ~ Ray Charles

I grew up listening to a lot of Ray Charles and '60s rock, thanks to my father, and then my brothers got me in to KISS and whatnot, so I guess that's where I got my first taste for music. ~ Avicii

With singing, the name of the game is to make yourself believable. When somebody hears you sing a song, and they say, 'Oh, that must have happened to him,' that's when you know you're transmitting. It's like being a good actor. You make people feel things, emotions and what not. ~ Ray Charles

When I'm having a rehearsal and there are new guys who come in to try out for the job, I always let my conductor rehearse them. Because I don't want the guy to get bent out of shape, because I walk in. ~ Ray Charles

I'm not a jazz singer, blues singer or country singer. I'm a singer that can sing rhythm & blues, that can sing jazz, that can sing country. There's a big difference. In other words, I'm not a specialist. ~ Ray Charles

You ask me what I'd like to do that I haven't done and I say 'Nothin'!' I haven't any mountains to climb or oceans to swim. I've been an extremely blessed individual ... I'm not clamorin' for more trinkets. If I were to die tomorrow, I could say I've had a good life. ~ Ray Charles

Drunken talk isn't meant to be printed in the paper. ~ Ray Charles

Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes. ~ Ray Charles

Now Listen You know I work so hard, all day long Everything I try to do, Seem to always turn out wrong That's why I wanna stop by on my way home and say Let's go get stoned ~ Ray Charles

I always stay out of the rehearsal room you know when they first come in. Then once they had chance to play a little bit, then I walk in. Because I've seen guys fall apart. ~ Ray Charles

I'm not into the money thing. You can only sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat one meal at a time, or be in one car at a time. So I don't have to have millions of dollars to be happy. All I need are clothes on my back, a decent meal, and a little loving when I feel like it. That's the bottom line. ~ Ray Charles

Some golfers fantasize about playing in a foursome with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Sam Snead. The way I hit I'd rather play in a foursome with Helen Keller, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder. ~ Bruce Lansky

The fact of the matter is, you don't give up what's natural. Anything I've fantasized about, I've done. ~ Ray Charles

Well I don't think I've scored my life exclusively to Ray Charles. ~ Taylor Hackford

I got thrown out of music school for even listening to Fats Domino and Ray Charles. I was asked, 'What kind of music do you like to listen to?' and I said, 'Well, I do like Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky but I also like Fats Domino and Ray Charles,' and they literally said, 'Either forget about that or leave.' ~ Steve Winwood

Goodbye don't mean gone. ~ Ray Charles

Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it everything is a blank slate ~ Ray Charles

I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was like a hundred years older than me. ~ Quincy Jones

The important thing is to feel your music, really feel it and believe it. ~ Ray Charles

People couldn't understand why my mama would have this blind kid out doing things like cutting wood for the fire. But her thing was: He may be blind, but he ain't stupid. ~ Ray Charles

I cant retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. Youd have to remove the music from me surgically - like you were taking out my appendix. ~ Ray Charles

Dig: I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor's goyish. B'nai B'rith is goyish; Hadassah, Jewish.
If you live in New York or any other big city, you are Jewish. It doesn't matter even if you're Catholic; if you live in New York, you're Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you're going to be goyish even if you're Jewish. ~ Lenny Bruce

Mama was a country woman with a whole lot of common sense. She understood what most of our neighbors didn't - that I shouldn't grow dependent on anyone except myself. 'One of these days, I ain't gonna be here,' she kept hammering inside my head. ~ Ray Charles

My mom taught me a lot. A lot about minding your own business and leaving other people's business alone. And let them think what they want. ~ Ray Charles

I met Quincy Jones in Seattle. We were kids together ... liked each other when we met and have been close ever since. He wasn't writing when we met - in fact, I more or less started him off to write; voicing, harmony, and stuff like that. ~ Ray Charles

Music to me is just like breathing. I have to have it. It's part of me. ~ Ray Charles

Who isn't a fan of Ray Charles? ~ John Scofield

There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we're here to explore new possibilities. ~ Ray Charles

I had to pawn my clothes just to pay my rent. ~ Ray Charles

When I was able to go to school in my early years, my third grade teacher, Ms. Harris, convinced me that one day I would be a writer. I heard her, but I knew that I had to leave Georgia, and unlike my friend Ray Charles, I did not go around with 'Georgia on My Mind.' ~ John Henrik Clarke

Music is my life, professionally, for nearly 60 years. To be recognized by the academy is still the highest honor. ~ Ray Charles

I'm a firm believer in God himself, but that's as far as I can go. I'm not any denomination. I'm not Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist or Jewish or Muslim. I'm none of those things. And I'm sure that's just fine with God. ~ Ray Charles

To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal. ~ Ray Charles

Do it right or don't do it at all. That comes from my mom. If there's something I want to do, I'm one of those people that won't be satisfied until I get it done. If I'm trying to sing something and I can't get it, I'm going to keep at it until I get where I want it. ~ Ray Charles

My secret heroes were Joe Morello, Ray Charles - who is, in my opinion, the most dominant figure in musical history in the 21st century - and Frank Sinatra. Those are my heroes. And as a writer, when Bob Dylan came along, it was a miracle because he gave us all permission to say anything! ~ J. D. Souther

When you listen to Ray Charles, there's never any doubt whose voice that is. ~ Clint Eastwood

Quincy Jones' autobiography 'Q' is very good. Because he's a master at music, he's one of our greatest composers, and its good for him to have a book and tell the good ole days when he was with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles. ~ Ice Cube

I think Ray Charles did as much as anybody when he did his country music album. Ray Charles broke down borders and showed the similarities between country music and R&B. ~ Willie Nelson

Music is nothing separate from me. It is me ... You'd have to remove the music surgically. ~ Ray Charles

I've always been the kind of person who, if there's anything that can kill me, I want to know something about it. ~ Ray Charles

There's such a thing as too much happiness and sadness. What I'm after is contentment. ~ Ray Charles

Sighted people, you gotta deal with them. ~ Ray Charles

I don't like that word 'discovery.' ... Sinatra was the first one to call Ray Charles a genius, he spoke of 'the genius of Ray Charles.' And after that everybody called him a genius. They didn't call him a genius before that though. He was a genius but they didn't call him that ... If a white man hadn't told them, they wouldn't've seen it ... Like, you know, they say Columbus discovered America, he didn't discover America. ~ Gayl Jones

Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap. ~ Ray Charles

Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human. ~ Ray Charles

I never considered myself part of rock 'n' roll. My stuff was more adult. It was more difficult for teenagers to relate to; my stuff was filled with more despair than anything you'd associate with rock 'n' roll. Since I couldn't see people dancing, I didn't write jitterbugs or twists. I wrote rhythms that moved me. My style requires pure heart singing. ~ Ray Charles

When I was 13, I started working in a nightclub with Ray Charles. That's the greatest school in the world, the school of the streets. Ray taught me how to read in Braille. He was only two years older than me, but it was like he was 100 years older. ~ Quincy Jones

The church didn't know what to do with Ray Charles or Al Green. And so they were kind of ostracized. ~ LeCrae

Art is the bridge across the gap between peoples and cultures. Writing is one of the arts that can help link people. ~ Charles Ray

I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay, a big stack of bills that gets bigger each day. ~ Ray Charles

I have owned and played a Steinway all my life. It's the best Beethoven piano. The best Chopin piano. And the best Ray Charles piano. I like it, too. ~ Randy Newman

I don't know about other writers, but for myself, to write I must be relatively quiet - it's very difficult to write with the telephone and the doorbell ringing and conversation going on; I'm not that good a writer to write through all that! ~ Ray Charles

I did it to myself. It wasn't society ... it wasn't a pusher, it wasn't being blind or being black or being poor. It was all my doing. ~ Ray Charles

Rebel

[Verse 1]
I don't give a fuck my brudda, I never have
I'm straight from the gutter my brudda, we never had
We living on a budget - holes in the rooftop
Room full of buckets, it's getting bad
Things could be worse I suppose, school trips, school kids
Cursing my clothes, is it the same in every house
When the curtains are closed? (daydreamin')
I'm in a world of my own (I ain't leavin')
It must be because I hate my reality
That's why I'm on the verge of embracing insanity
Put me in a padded room
Throw away the key and let me escape the anarchy
I can't take it, I turn my back on the world
I can't face it, Ray-Ban gang fam
Can't see my eyes cause I'm on my dark shades shit (Ray Charles)

[Bridge]
Black everything, you can ask David
Cameron if we're living in the dark ages
Black everything, you can ask David
Black everything, you can ask David
Black everything, you can ask David
Cameron if we're living in the dark ages

[Hook]
(It's a living hell) I'm a rebel
Always have been
Where I'm come from it's a mad ting
(It's a living hell) Standing in my Stan Smiths
Stamping on the canvas for action
(It's a living hell) All I acquired from the riot
Is people are sick and tired of being quiet
(It's a living hell) Dying to be heard
That's why there's fire in my words

[Verse 2]
I don't give a ~ Ghetts

Nowadays they say you need a special chip to put in the TV so kids can't watch this and that. In my day, we didn't need a chip. My mom was the chip. End of story. ~ Ray Charles