Afro americans

Ray Charles A multitalented blind black musician. Ray Charles died Thursday June 10, 2004. He was 73. He left behind a long list of soul music hits and Grammy awards. He made a new genre of music. In so doing he changed what had previously been only a black and white territorial paper map of American music into a 3-D. Ray Charles Robinson was born Sept. 23, 1930, in Albany, Ga. His father, Bailey Robinson, was a mechanic and a handyman, and his mother, Aretha, stacked boards in a sawmill. His family moved to the poor black community on the