North Florida Music Hall of Fame

Ray Charles at the piano

Born in 1930, in Albany, Ga.; moved to Greenville, Fla. (near Tallahassee) with his family while still an infant. Attended the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine; lived and performed in Jacksonville in 1945, where he lived at 732 Church Street. After leaving Florida for Seattle, he was signed to Los Angeles-based Swingtime Records in 1947. His first big hit, “I Got a Woman,” would not appear until two years after switching to Atlantic Records in 1952. In 1959, Charles left Atlantic for ABC-Paramount, where he would hit No. 1 with the ground-breakingly eclectic Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music (1962). Later recorded for Columbia and Qwest (Seattle buddy Quincy Jones’s label). Charles had one of the longest and most successful careers of any entertainer, and continued to record and tour actively until his death in June of 2004 from liver disease.