Quote

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

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Ray Charles
Age: 71 †
Born: 1932
Born: September 23
Died: 2004
Died: June 10
Composer
Jazz Musician
Music Arranger
Musician
Pianist
Recording Artist
Saxophonist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Soul Musician
Vocalist
Albany
Georgia
Ray Charles Robinson
Raymond Charles Robinson Peter
Unless
Learning
Song
Feel
Feels
Heart
Believe
Pass
Sing

More quotes by Ray Charles

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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.
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Goodbye don't mean gone.
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The fact of the matter is, you don't give up what's natural. Anything I've fantasized about, I've done.
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Art Tatum -- he was a genius. And Einstein, not me.
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There's such a thing as too much happiness and sadness. What I'm after is contentment.
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Dreams, if they're any good, are always a little bit crazy.
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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.
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Before I begin, let me say right here and now that I'm a country boy. And, man, I mean the real backwoods! That's at the start of the start of the thing, and that's at the heart of the thing.
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Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. ... This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it.
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Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it everything is a blank slate
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Other arms reach out to me, Other eyes smile tenderly, Still in peaceful dreams I see, The road leads back to you.
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I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay, a big stack of bills that gets bigger each day.
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[On his heroin addiction:] 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.
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Hit the road Jack, don'tcha come back no more, no more, no more, no more. Hit the road Jack, don'tcha come back no more.
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There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we're here to explore new possibilities.
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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
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I never said I was a genius. I never said I was a cornerstone. I've never said I'm a legend in my own time. You never heard me say nothing like that.
Ray Charles
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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
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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
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I always stay out of the rehearsal room you know when they first come in. Then once they had chance to play a little bit, then I walk in. Because I've seen guys fall apart.
Ray Charles