163 Ray Charles (1930-2004) “I Got a Woman” 1954

He “virtually invented soul music by bringing together the fervor of gospel, the secular lyrics and narratives of blues and country, the big-band arrangements of jazz, and rhythms and improvisational possibilities from all of them…He learned how to play several instruments and wrote music in Braille at the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and the Blind when he was an adolescent” (The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll).

Ray Charles “I Got a Woman”