Quote

I cant retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. Youd have to remove the music from me surgically—like you were taking out my appendix.

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
Retire
Cant
Retiring
Remove
Taking
Music
Surgically
Like
Appendix
Liver

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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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Goodbye don't mean gone.
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It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good.
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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.
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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.
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When I started to sing like myself - as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while - when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for 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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I heard someone say that all black people got rhythm. Bullshit.
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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.
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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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I'm not into the money thing. You can only sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat one meal at a time, or be in one car at a time. So I don't have to have millions of dollars to be happy. All I need are clothes on my back, a decent meal, and a little loving when I feel like it. That's the bottom line.
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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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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.
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There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, 'If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.'
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Art Tatum -- he was a genius. And Einstein, not me.
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Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human.
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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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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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[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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Live each day like it's your last, 'cause one day you gonna be right
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