Ray Charles: Musical Genius Ray Charles is considered a musical genius in many different fields. He has great success in pop, jazz, blues, country, gospel and western. Recognized as an all-round entertainer, an expert pianist, singer and saxophonist. Charles began receiving popular attention around the 1950s as the inventor of soul music. He once defined soul music: "Soul music is when you can convey the meaning of a song and make people feel it, make them think, Oh, Ray, you must have experienced that because there's no way you could have sung it." that song." unless it happened to you."(Jet Magazine)Ray Charles Robinson was born in Albany, Georgia, on September 23, 1930. His father, Bailey Robinson, was a mechanic and handyman, and his mother Aretha, stacked boards in a sawmill.When Charles was an infant, his parents moved to Greenville, Florida. While they were in Greenville a neighbor began giving Charles piano lessons after he taught himself at the age of three owned a small store not far from where they lived, Charles not only took piano lessons in the juke joint, but absorbed blues, jazz, and gospel music in the juke joint's "bar." At the age of five, Charles saw his younger brother drowned in the tub where his mother did laundry, while his family was going through a very difficult time during the Great Depression. About two years later Charles lost his sight due to glaucoma. He once claimed that his mother never had him allowed to feel sorry for himself. In an interview with Jet Magazine, his mother told him: "Okay, you're blind. That just means there are at least two ways to do everything. You just have to find the second way... Whatever happens to you is up to you ..." His mother also told him: "You are blind, you are not dumb. You have lost your sight, not your head." For nine years he attended the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, studying composition and number of instruments. When he left school he worked in several places with many different groups in the Florida area. (Salamone) “Learning to read music in Braille and play it by ear helped me develop a damn good memory,” Charles said. “I can sit at my desk and write an entire arrangement in my head without ever touching a piano… There's no reason for it to come out other than how it sounds in my head.