Ray Charles (1930-2004) led one of the most extraordinary lives of any popular musician. In Brother Ray, he
tells his story in an inimitable and unsparing voice, from the chronicle of his musical development to his heroin
addiction to his tangled romantic life. Overcoming poverty, blindness, the loss of his parents, and the pervasive
racism of the era, Ray Charles was acclaimed worldwide as a genius by the age of thirty-two. By combining the influences
of gospel, jazz, blues, and country music, he invented, almost single-handedly, what became known as soul. And
throughout a career spanning more than a half century, Ray Charles remained in complete control of his life and
his music, allowing nobody to tell him what he could and couldn't do. As the Chicago Sun-Times put it, Brother
Ray is "candid, explicit, sometimes embarrassing, often hilarious, always warm, touching, and deeply human-just
like his music."