Ray Charles: Man and Music
by By Lydon, Michael
Category: Biography & Autobiography , Entertainment & Performing Arts

In the first-ever full-length biography of Ray Charles, Michael Lydon introduces us to this giant of American music as we've never seen him before. Beginning with his Depression-era childhood in Greenville, Florida, Lydon shows us the fight Charles has waged to fulfill his ambition to become a great musician.Lydon traces Charles' tumultuous career on the road and in the recording studio, bringing to life the highs and lows and the many memorable characters he encountered as he toured the Jim Crow South on the "chitlin curcuit," and the rest of the country. For nearly two decades, Charles struggled with heroin abuse. He loved countless women and became a sultan in a harem of his own making. Veterans of the jazz and soul scene - Quincy Jones, David "Fathead" Newman, Leroy "Hog" Cooper - became lifelong friends and collaborators, and Charles negotiated an unheard-of arrangement with his record label, which gave him complete ownership of his master tapes and made him a millionaire.