Ray Charles
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, MI. 9/22/83
S = Standifer
C = Ray Charles
S First of all, You were born in Dormany
County, Georgia? Did I pronounce that correctly?
C Well, you got me on that. I was born in
Albany, Georgia. Now if you say what county that was in, then you lost
me.
S Okay.
C The name of the town is Albany Georgia.
S Now I understand you left there when,
about 2months old and went to Greenville.
C Yeah, that's, well You somewhere along
in there. I Was much too small to remember the city of Albany. My parents,
you're quite right, moved there when I was about 3 or 4 months old into
a Cathedral. And I was reared in Greenville, Florida and went to school
in St. Augustine, Florida.
S I see, now St. Augustine I understand
you went to the deaf and blind school.
C Exactly,
S And you started studying classical music,
did I read that correctly?
C Yeah, that's correct.
S Well, how did you, tonight when you were
playing a little bit of Hurlese, you know, I said one moment here, what's
going on cause I first. . . (Laughter) But any way, how did you happen
to get from that inot some of the gospel idioms that I used to hear?
C Well, I wanted to learn music because
first of all I wanted to write it. So that, you can not write it unless
you study it,s simple as that. So, I stopped to study; what may suprise
you though....... Started....... is that piano, although I was playing
piano before I started in school, but piano was not the instrument that
i took up when I first started taking up training. I took up clarinet
S Clarinet
CS: Yes because I, they had enough piano players
S Now I see
C You know how that is. They got enough
of a certain thing, so you got take something else. Well I always loved
Arty Shaw. I thought he was, talking about a genius, I really thought
the man, of course everybody was talking about Bennie Goodman, but Arty
Shaw could play anything Bennie Goodman and more, with feeling. So I loved
Arty Shaw. So I started to study the clarinet, at first when I went to
school. This was my little musical training. Of course, later on I did
take up piano, obviously.
S Well how old were you then when you changed
from clarinet to piano?
C Oh I was about eight. Somewhere along
in there, eight or nine.
S Now were you hearing...
C Well actually what happened I didn't change
from, I just kept playing clarinet while I took up piano. so
S Oh, I see Now were you hearing as much
as you obviously hear now as a little boy, 'cause I at the School of Music;
I work for PBS , but I'm also a professor at the school of Music, so tonight
I heard the changes and I was intellectualizing what you were doing. Now
I want to know, as a child, were you hearing the chord changes that I
know J~J that you obviously have to hear in order to
C Oh yeah, I, you're quite right, I did
hear. Always, well I hate to sound like , see the only thing about a question
like that, it makes one sound like he is bragging.. (blowing his own horn?)
S No I. .
C But, no I've always been able to hear
or come close to.... . I have what they call perfect pitch, you know,
meaning I can hear when chords go, I can hear what notes you hit, you
know without you telling me and stuff like that..
S Right
C But, I could always hear that, but I ~think
what was important with me, with the music is that I couldn't, there was
no way I could get away from it, if you know what I mean, I mean I, the
thing with studying classical music is you asked me about I at first I
wanted to learn because I always.. I love good music, I don't care what
kind it is; whether it's jazz or classical., or whether it's country ...
what
S Oh wow!
C I just love music when it's played good,
when it's played well (Maybe that's the proper terminology) And so, but
where I got in trouble in school, My teacher was very strict you know.
She was, well all my teachers as a matter of fact was a very classical
orientated. I mean they didn't want to hear nothing from nothing but classic
(laughter) they told one of the Savidias, Rachmaninov, or Chopin, I mean
that was it. So with me, I did my excellent, but also wanted go
<Ray Charles plays piano>
C And the teacher would come in and say WHAT! that's not your lesson, you can't play that, you know. It was something about , I think the transition between classical and jazz music to see... Although I wanted to learn music and I wanted to learn classical music because I respected it , I also wanted to create. And of course then in classical music there is no creating, you play what's on the page...
S Right
C " That's it! And I wanted to go beyond
that and so the transition was right there you know although my teachers
would give me trouble for not practicing my lesson. But I practiced enough
in order to do what they wanted me to do but, I guess I was sort of rebellious,
but I was a good student so they didn't hurt me too bad.
S Did you get any of this from your mother
Aretha, did I, is that.,
C No, I had no parents. My mother, my father,
neither played or sung nothin' and that's what is very strange because
my children--my sons, they sings and I sing, they can't carry tune in
the.. (laughter). So you know all that stuff about, well you know his
father was a great, well his mother was a great, believe me it don't always
work out that way.
S Alright, what about the church then?
How much did the church influence you if your mother and father didn't
uh ...
C Well the church was again music, ALL music
influenced me. And let's understand that all music: every form of music
that t I've ever heard in my life. If it was good, it influenced me in
some way. And the church music or religious music was no exception. As
a matter of fact, I was raised in the old fashioned Baptist church where
they didn't have no piano or no organ. And they would sang these hymns,
these mournful things, hymns where sometimes the preacher would say the
verse and then the congregation would sing the song, say the words after
he said them.
S Like Amazing Grace!
C How sweet the sound ...
S Okay I've been there.
C So you know what I'm talking 46about.
S Right!
C Well I'm from one of those type of churches,
you know Baptist churches. Well that's good music. That will make you
cry, you know it will hurt you and yet if they got a, one of those high
rhythmic tunes, it will make you jump out of your seat.(laughter) And
this is what I mean by.............
<incomplete>
END OF INTERVIEW