Ray Charles

Ray Charles stands as an influential pop musician of the last half century. This biography covers his early life of poverty in the deep South and looks at his relationships, professional and romantic, as well as examining his influence on other singers.

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Brother Ray and I now tour the world, but in the Fifties we worked our way up through the southern chitlin circuit. This book gets down to the nitty-gritty of those days, the smoke, the sweat, and the music. B B KingThis makes for exciting reading.Lydon's portrait is a highly engaging one, building into a mammoth account that covers the singer's decline in the 1970s as well as his resurgence a decade later. Lydon's understanding of both Charles's appeal and his impact on popular music has a convincing authority, and his frank discussion of the more unsavoury aspect's of the singers life - heroine addiction and numerous infidelities - brings a sobering shade to the colourful image of the man whom Stevie Wonder respectfully refers to as Uncle Ray. Independent on Sunday