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Ray Charles
Pianist, singer & architect of soul music
Blind from age seven, he fused gospel, blues, jazz and country into soul — a genre that did not exist until he invented it.
The rise
Orphaned and blind by age seven in northern Florida, Charles attended a school for the deaf and blind where he learned music. At 17, he moved to Seattle, then to Los Angeles, developing a style that merged sacred and secular music. His 1954 hit 'I Got a Woman' — gospel intensity over rhythm-and-blues — is widely regarded as the birth of soul music.