Ray Charles (composer)
Ray Charles (born Charles Raymond Offenberg, September 13, 1918, Chicago, Illinois, United States) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, vocal arranger and conductor who is best- known as organizer and leader of The Ray Charles Singers. The Ray Charles Singers were featured on Perry Como's records, radio shows and television shows for 35 years. The Ray Charles Singers are also known for a series of 30 choral record albums produced in the 1950s and 1960s for Essex, MGM, Decca and Command labels.
As a vocalist, Charles, along with Julia Rinker Miller, is known for singing the theme song to the television series Three's Company ("Come and Knock on Our Door"). As a songwriter, Charles is best known for the choral anthem "Fifty Nifty United States," in which he set the names of the states to music in alphabetical order. It was originally written for The Perry Como Show. He is also known for "Letters, We Get Letters," also originally written for The Perry Como Show and later used on Late Show with David Letterman.
At the age of 94 years, he continues to serve as a musical consultant to television programs, most notably for the last 29 years on the Kennedy Center Honors. Charles is acknowledged as an authority on American popular music.
Famous quotes containing the word ray:
“How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible. There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)