Episode #84 | 7.13.21
Ray Charles: Busted for Heroin and Busting Genres with the Best Damn R&B
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In this episode
Ray Charles was hooked on heroin, arrested by federal agents, and once survived a near-death plane ride by helping the pilot - as a blind man. He invented R&B. He was powerful enough to bring black and white culture into one. He was a genre-melding musical genius. Despite being born into a literal dirt poor existence in the Jim Crow era Deep South, despite going completely blind by the age of seven, and despite his addiction, Ray Charles influenced everyone from the Beatles to Belushi. And he made some of the greatest music of all time.
Sources
Brother Ray: Ray Charles’ Own Story, by Ray Charles & David Ritz
Ray, directed by Taylor Hackford
The Pop History Dig: “Ray Sings America”
Baseball Reference: 2001 World Series Game 2, Yankees at Diamondbacks, October 28
New York Times: Born to Be Blue
Ray Charles Video Museum: Ray Charles Arrested for Drugs (1961)
The Vintage News: Hit the Road Jack! The Undercover Drug Arrest of Ray Charles
Rolling Stone: Ray Charles: The Rolling Stone Interview 1/18/73
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Music
Score by Jake Brennan.
Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.
Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak