Top 100 Quotes About Ray Charles
#1. 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
#2. All other nations are drinking Ray Charles beer and we are drinking Barry Manilow.
Dave Barry
#3. I would like to be able to do a song with Ray Charles, before we both get too old.
Joe Cocker
#4. When you work with Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine and Frank Sinatra, and you tell them to jump without a net, you better know what you're talking about. Thank God I was ready for it.
Quincy Jones
#5. I recently saw the movie about Ray Charles, and there's a scene where he falls down and the mother doesn't help him. She says, I don't want anyone to treat you like a cripple. I've fallen down before, and Molly will say, get up and just go.
Teri Garr
#6. 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
#8. 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
#9. Ray Charles, who said to Stevie Wonder, Maybe we're white. Never got a dinner!
Red Buttons
#10. A guy said to me, 'You're so lucky. You have people like Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand and The Beatles doing your songs.' I figured out, though, the harder I work the luckier I get. The secret of anything is to surround yourself with good people if you want a good product.
Buck Owens
#11. I'm still trying to re-create a Ray Charles concert that I heard when I was fifteen years old, and all my nerve endings were fried and transformed, and electricity shot through me.
Boz Scaggs
#12. Guys like me and Ray Charles, when we was coming up through our days, country music and soul music was just a very thin line between the two.
Percy Sledge
#13. 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
#14. Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking; he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money.
Miles Davis
#15. Listen to any cantor, any good hazan, sing and you can hear a little bit of Ray Charles going on.
Jerry Leiber
#16. The average American's day planner has fewer holes in it than Ray Charles's dart board.
Dennis Miller
#17. 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
#18. Ray Charles has always been a big part of my life.
Darius Rucker
#19. 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
#20. My dad has always been a big Ray Charles fan, and I've grown up listening to all kinds of music.
Avicii
#21. Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice.
Taylor Hackford
#22. I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was like a hundred years older than me.
Quincy Jones
#23. Give it up for Ray Charles and his beautiful legacy. And thank you, Ray Charles, for living.
Jamie Foxx
#24. I'm probably the only one in the world you can name that's worked with Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson, rappers. 'Fly Me to the Moon' was played on the moon by Buzz Aldrin. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. I'm the only one.
Quincy Jones
#25. I have met so many of my idols - like Ray Charles, Brian Setzer - all these cats that are legendary musicians. If they had said to me, 'Hey man, I'm busy,' it would have crushed my soul.
Drake Bell
#26. 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
#27. I don't think I've met anyone with a stronger work ethic than Ray Charles.
Clint Eastwood
#28. Music's been around a long time, and there's going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it's a big record, that's the frosting on the cake, but music's the main meal.
Ray Charles
#29. The Beatles and Ray Charles were in the same charts together, and that was just called pop music - it wasn't called soul or rock. The best pop music just stands out as something that's just original, and I think it should all be called pop again.
Eliza Doolittle
#30. 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
#31. Well I don't think I've scored my life exclusively to Ray Charles.
Taylor Hackford
#32. I always say that I went to the College of Blossoms and the University of Ray Charles.
Merry Clayton
#33. I have the background singers of Ray Charles, the background singers of Smokey Robinson, and the background singers of Barry White and I built a choir around that.
Della Reese
#34. 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
#35. Most people are dead. Hitler. Ray Charles. Some other guys. But mostly those two.
Louis C.K.
#36. Atlantic's Jerry Wexler believes first-rate records are made by first-rate voices. He certainly has worked with enough of them: Clyde McPhatter, Joe Turner, La Vern Baker, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin.
Jon Landau
#37. 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
#38. 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
#39. Everyone felt like they knew Ray Charles and in a way they did, because he was embodied by his music.
Ahmet Ertegun
#41. The first piece of music that captured my imagination was probably Ray Charles Live At Newport.
Van Morrison
#42. 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
#43. When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.
Daryl Hall
#44. 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
#45. 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
#46. The church didn't know what to do with Ray Charles or Al Green. And so they were kind of ostracized.
LeCrae
#47. 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
#48. 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
#49. I'm proud of my mentors. Ray Charles is the strongest influence on me as a singer.
Michael Bolton
#50. I show more blind rage than Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles wrestling in a steel cage.
Chino XL
#51. 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
#52. When you listen to Ray Charles, there's never any doubt whose voice that is.
Clint Eastwood
#53. Randy Newman seemed like an even worse singer than me. I liked Ray Charles, Levi Stubbs, Jack Jones, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett.
Donald Fagen
#54. 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
#55. 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
#56. 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
#57. 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
#58. I liked the more sophisticated urban style of blues like Ray Charles and B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Lou Rawls; people like that with more of a tendency toward jazz.
Edgar Winter
#59. 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
#60. Lift others and yourself as you rise above this mess of comparison. Thank God for those who embraced their true selves and gave us gifts that only they could give: from Steve Jobs to Michael Jackson to Ray Charles to Mark Twain. There are so many more, and the list goes on.
Grace Gealey
#61. The reason I wanted to become an organ player was because I heard Ray Charles play on Quincy Jones' arrangement of "One Mint Julep." I heard that sound, and it just struck me. I thought that's what I want to do with my life. That's the sound I want to try to make.
Booker T. Jones
#62. Ray Charles' revolutionary approach to music was also reflected in his politics and his deep and abiding commitment to Martin Luther King and the plight of African-Americans. Ray Charles may not have been on the front lines, but he put his money where his mouth was.
Diane Watson
#63. You have a problem, just ask yourself one simple question: What would Ray Charles do in a situation like this?
Howard Korder
#64. 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
#65. I didn't even respect singers until I heard Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong.
J. D. Souther
#66. What is a soul? It's like electricity - we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light a room.
Ray Charles
#67. 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
#68. 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
#69. 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
#70. Live each day like it's your last, 'cause one day you gonna be right
Ray Charles
#71. Music to me is just like breathing. I have to have it. It's part of me.
Ray Charles
#72. There's such a thing as too much happiness and sadness. What I'm after is contentment.
Ray Charles
#73. Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.
Ray Charles
#74. 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
#75. 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
#76. Just like you can buy grades of silk, you can buy grades of justice.
Ray Charles
#77. 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
#78. 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
#79. My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.
Ray Charles
#81. 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
#82. Sometimes my dreams are so deep that I dream that I'm dreaming.
Ray Charles
#83. Rhythm and blues used to be called race music ... This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it.
Ray Charles
#84. There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we're here to explore new possibilities.
Ray Charles
#85. I think that most great artists who are extremely known, as I am, would intimidate a lot of people. I don't want to do that to people, but I know I do.
Ray Charles
#86. 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
#87. 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
#88. You hear, Eugene?' said Lightwood over his shoulder. 'You are deeply interested in lime.'
'Without lime,' returned that unmoved barrister at law, 'my existence would be unilluminated by a ray of hope.
Charles Dickens
#89. 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
#91. All my life I've always been so blue, born to lose, and now I'm losing you.
Ray Charles
#92. Any artist, when he goes in to record, should have the feeling that any song he records can be a hit. This may sound egotistical, but it makes sense.
Ray Charles
#93. 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
#94. Many times during auditions, I was told that I couldn't carry a note with a bucket, and that I sure couldn't play the piano.
Ray Charles
#95. 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
#96. 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
#97. Brad Dourif as Charles Lee Ray, it's impossible to imagine anyone else in that role. I mean, he's just so great. Over the course of the five movies, he always just takes it so seriously, doesn't condescend to the material, whatsoever and just treats it as if he was playing Hamlet.
David Kirschner
#98. Music is powerful. As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond.
Ray Charles
#99. I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.
Ray Charles
#100. Death ray, fiddlesticks! Why, it doesn't even slow them up!
Charles Adams
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