On September 23, 1930, legendary singer, songwriter, and pianist Ray Charles was born in Albany, Georgia. He began losing his sight as a child, likely because of glaucoma, and was fully blind by about age seven. Yet Charles overcame immense barriers to become one of the most transformative figures in American music, helping pioneer soul by blending blues, gospel, jazz, and rhythm and blues.
His extraordinary career was defined by fearless innovation and broad cross-genre appeal. In December 1958, while performing on his Wurlitzer electric piano, Charles improvised a driving call-and-response number to fill the remaining time in a concert set. That spontaneous performance became the foundation for his landmark song “What’d I Say.”
Released in 1959, “What’d I Say” became Charles’s first million-selling record and a major R&B hit, helping bring his electrifying sound to a wide audience. It remains a defining example of the energy, improvisation, and gospel-inflected spirit that earned Ray Charles the enduring title “The Genius.”
Image: Ray Charles & Fred Nelson III via Wikimedia Commons from La’D’Music
