Ray Charles, 1930-2004
Tony Russell, The Guardian, 12 June 2004
DURING THE 1960S, a generation of teenagers discovered America's hidden music of black blues, gospel and soul, and many of them promptly fissured into followings of one genre or another. If anyone could reunite those factions it was Ray Charles, who has died aged 73. His work had elements of every idiom: it was pan-American music. Sometimes, it seemed to be even more than that.
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