Ray Charles: Man and Music Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Ray Charles: Man and Music Book

In 1954, Atlantic Records honchos Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler visited an Atlanta club where one of their artists was gigging. Ray Charles and his band blew into a new song when the men entered. It was "I Got a Woman," the tune that marked the blind Albany, Georgia-born singer-pianist's evolution from an able imitator of Nat "King" Cole and Charles Brown into an artist who would transform American music. In Ray Charles: Man and Music, veteran music journalist Michael Lydon imbues the familiar story with fresh detail upon fresh detail. Charles's early years spent scuffling on the chitlin circuit, his embrace of everything from pop chestnuts and country hits to hip jazz as an audaciously eclectic record maker, and the many hours given over to womanizing and a heroin addiction at the height of his stardom are given a cinematic immediacy here. More than most artists, Charles followed his instincts to huge artistic rewards and the love of many listeners who recognized their own voices in his sound. Lydon captures as much of the offstage man as is likely to ever make it to the page--the man who himself once insisted, "My life was what it was. Whatever it became, I made it so." --Rickey WrightRead More

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  • Product Description

    ( The first comprehensive, definitive biography of Ray Charles ( Based on extensive interviews with Ray Charles himself, as well as more than 150 other sources

    ( Includes 16 pages of photos

    "Absolutely fresh and compelling. This is a book not just about Ray Charles but about the world that nourished and inspired him. A true revelation."-Peter Guralnick, author of Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love

    "An exhaustively researched, movingly written biography of the man Frank Sinatra once called 'the only genius in our business.'"-People

    "Admirable...engrossing...Lydon isn't afraid to peek under those dark glasses and present a complete picture of this phenomenally talented but equally complicated man."-Jeff Turrentine, Forbes

    "[Ray Charles] may well be the ultimate American story....Remarkably candid. A scrupulous and perceptive piece of work."-Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

    "This is no quickie pop-star bio. Lydon understands that Ray Charles is a character as complicated as any in fiction and fully as interesting. Dostoevsky might have invented Ray Charles, had he the inspiration."-The Newark Star-Ledger

    "Lydon's richly detailed account powerfully evokes his times and context....Essential reading for popular-music fans."-Booklist

  • 1573227803
  • 9781573227803
  • Michael Lydon
  • 1 January 2000
  • Riverhead Books
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 436
  • Reprint
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