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Ray Charles: Busted for Heroin and Busting Genres with the Best Damn R&B · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:15
Speaker 1: Ray Charles are insane. He was arrested numerous times for heroin, marijuana,
0:21
Speaker 1: drug paraphernalia, who once by federal agents. He avoided a
0:25
Speaker 1: deadly plane crash by helping pilot a plane, and it's
0:28
Speaker 1: worth noting that he was blind. He used his genius
0:31
Speaker 1: to mix gospel with blues and invent the genre of
0:34
Speaker 1: R and B. Then he melded that new style with
0:37
Speaker 1: country in Western to become one of the biggest selling
0:40
Speaker 1: black artists of his day, crossing over to enjoy mainstream
0:43
Speaker 1: success by attracting a massive white audience. And Ray Charles
0:47
Speaker 1: influenced everyone from the Beatles to Belushi by making some
0:51
Speaker 1: of the greatest music of all time. And that music
0:54
Speaker 1: I played for you at the top of the show
0:56
Speaker 1: that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from
1:00
Speaker 1: Mellotron called Minnie Cha Cha Cha MK one. I played
1:05
Speaker 1: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to
1:07
Speaker 1: off Wheederson Sweetheart by via Lon. And why would I
1:11
Speaker 1: play you that specific slice of stink Floyd Cheese? Could
1:15
Speaker 1: I afford it? Because that was the number one song
1:19
Speaker 1: in America? On September third, nineteen fifty two, and that
1:23
Speaker 1: was the deve Ray Charles signed to Atlantic Records, setting
1:27
Speaker 1: the chorus for him to manifest the vision of himself
1:30
Speaker 1: he'd had since he was a young boy, a young
1:33
Speaker 1: blind boy, a vision of becoming one of the greatest
1:36
Speaker 1: musicians of all time. On this episode busted for Heroin
1:42
Speaker 1: and busting genre seeing into the Future in the Genius
1:45
Speaker 1: of Ray Charles. I'm Jake Brennan. In this this Disgraceland,
2:21
Speaker 1: Ray Charles was co piloting the small plane, a six
2:25
Speaker 1: seat Cessna three ten. Ray Charles couldn't see anything, but
2:29
Speaker 1: not because he was blind, because visibility from the snowstorm.
2:33
Speaker 1: He his pilot and there one passenger, a diminutive rock journalist,
2:37
Speaker 1: who were trying to land in was zero zero visibility.
2:43
Speaker 1: No need to lose his cool. The plan was for
2:47
Speaker 1: air traffic control to radio in landing instructions. Ray Charles
2:52
Speaker 1: was his pilot's eyes. He communicated the radio instructions to
2:55
Speaker 1: his pilot, who kept his gaze on the cockpit's instrument
2:58
Speaker 1: landing system, listening to Ray intently focused on guiding the
3:03
Speaker 1: plane safely into the Oklahoma City landing strip. Ray loved
3:07
Speaker 1: this plane. It made his life a lot easier traveling
3:11
Speaker 1: to his concerts. This way was much more efficient and
3:14
Speaker 1: theoretically safer. But more than that, Ray Charles, a musician
3:18
Speaker 1: by trade, a piano player, a songwriter, and a ranger
3:22
Speaker 1: and bandleader, having his own plane, said to those who
3:25
Speaker 1: cared to know that he'd made it despite being born
3:31
Speaker 1: into a literal dirt poor existence in the Jim Crow
3:34
Speaker 1: era Deep South, despite going completely blind by the age
3:38
Speaker 1: of seven, despite his Heroin addiction, an addiction that led
3:42
Speaker 1: to three arrests up until that point. Despite all of that,
3:46
Speaker 1: Ray Charles had made it. First as a teenage fenom
3:51
Speaker 1: doing his best not king cold impression, an act that
3:54
Speaker 1: allowed him to make a living playing music at a
3:57
Speaker 1: young age and endeared him to older, more seasoned musicians.
4:01
Speaker 1: And then as a sideman duking it out in the
4:03
Speaker 1: violent Chipman circuit backing up Lowell Fulson, And then as
4:06
Speaker 1: a singles man signed to Atlantic Records, where his genius
4:10
Speaker 1: was given full creator freedom to blossom. And finally, as
4:14
Speaker 1: a highly compensated album artist of the first order signed
4:18
Speaker 1: to a lucrative recording contract with ABC Records, a contract
4:22
Speaker 1: that granted him an unprecedented royalty rate, as well as
4:25
Speaker 1: ownership of his master recordings, and of course enough money
4:29
Speaker 1: to buy his own plane. Ray Charles was a somebody
4:33
Speaker 1: in a world of nobody's because that's exactly who his
4:36
Speaker 1: mama told him he would be, and there was no
4:39
Speaker 1: giving in to defeat. Didn't matter that he was blind,
4:42
Speaker 1: didn't matter that he was born poor, didn't matter that
4:45
Speaker 1: he was black. Those things were givens. There was nothing
4:48
Speaker 1: he could do to change them. The only thing he
4:50
Speaker 1: could change was his own future. How he saw himself,
4:54
Speaker 1: where he saw himself, who he was, and that meant resilience.
4:58
Speaker 1: That meant no excuse, no self pity. That meant showing up.
5:02
Speaker 1: That meant not taking no for an answer. That meant
5:05
Speaker 1: working hard and seizing whatever opportunity was put in front
5:08
Speaker 1: of him. White audiences wanted a polite nat King Cole's
5:13
Speaker 1: sounding impersonator, no problem. Ray Charles thought that was a genius,
5:18
Speaker 1: his phrasing, his playing, his delivery. Ray would learn it
5:21
Speaker 1: all and deliver Lowel Folsom needed a piano player, sure thing,
5:26
Speaker 1: Ray Charles would not only give him that, he'd lead
5:28
Speaker 1: his band too and learn the ways. This seasoned road
5:31
Speaker 1: musicians while he was at it. Atlantic Records needed hits
5:34
Speaker 1: to keep their fledgling independent label competitive. Not a problem.
5:38
Speaker 1: Ray Charles would casually meld the gospel influence he was
5:41
Speaker 1: raised on with the low down, dirty blues of the
5:44
Speaker 1: Chitlin circuit and invent modern rhythm and blues in the process.
5:48
Speaker 1: Oh and ABC Records needed ready to go bigger, wider
5:50
Speaker 1: to earn out that massive recording contract they'd given him.
5:53
Speaker 1: Ray had it figured out. He put all of his
5:55
Speaker 1: previous experience together and lent his genius to genre melting
5:59
Speaker 1: once again, again, mixing country and Western with sophisticated jazz
6:03
Speaker 1: and pop on his landmark album Modern Sounds in Country
6:06
Speaker 1: and Western sell a gazillion copies and crossover to a
6:10
Speaker 1: mainstream white audience in a way that no black artist
6:13
Speaker 1: had done prior, not even his hero Nat King Cole.
6:17
Speaker 1: It was all part of the job, doing the damn
6:22
Speaker 1: thing whatever it was, and not accepting his own limitations,
6:25
Speaker 1: because those limitations were just that his own show Ray Charles,
6:29
Speaker 1: where it was written that he couldn't do a thing
6:31
Speaker 1: because he was blind, and he'd point you to nowhere.
6:34
Speaker 1: He didn't need a cane. He had ears, in a
6:36
Speaker 1: mind and two hands, and he could hear, learn and
6:38
Speaker 1: feel his way through. And he didn't need a seeing
6:41
Speaker 1: eye dog either. He wasn't going to become relying on
6:43
Speaker 1: a fucking animal to lead him around. Ray Charles made
6:48
Speaker 1: his way throughout whatever city he was in on his own,
6:51
Speaker 1: onto whatever stage he was playing that night, through whatever
6:55
Speaker 1: song he was playing on his piano, to the end
6:57
Speaker 1: of the set, off of the stage, to the after part,
7:00
Speaker 1: already into the bed of whatever good time gal was
7:02
Speaker 1: hanging around. And just because he was blind, it didn't
7:05
Speaker 1: mean he settled for women who were less attractive. Ray
7:08
Speaker 1: Charles knew beautiful women when speaking with them, if they
7:12
Speaker 1: gave him the indication they were interested, and most did,
7:15
Speaker 1: such as his appeal as a musician and entertainer, He'd
7:18
Speaker 1: run his hand over their wrists and arms, and once
7:21
Speaker 1: the signals were received, he'd casually sensually feel about to
7:25
Speaker 1: get a fuller picture, and the flirting would continue, and
7:28
Speaker 1: eventually off to bed they'd go. Ray Charles was just
7:32
Speaker 1: like any other musician, except that he wasn't. He was
7:35
Speaker 1: Ray Charles, a genius. Ray Charles had arrived and at
7:41
Speaker 1: the moment as the newly released modern sounds in country
7:45
Speaker 1: and Western music was gloriously climbing the charts. Ray Charles's
7:49
Speaker 1: dual engine Cessna airplane was making a horrifying descent sixteen
7:56
Speaker 1: feet fifteen ten nine, six thousand feet five thousand and
8:02
Speaker 1: four three two thousand feet one thousand feet. Finally, the
8:06
Speaker 1: plane was just two hundred and fifty feet above the
8:08
Speaker 1: ground and ready to land. But then air traffic control
8:12
Speaker 1: told him to bring the plane back up for a bit.
8:14
Speaker 1: They were at too low an altitude for their approach.
8:17
Speaker 1: Nothing out of the ordinary happened all the time. Ray
8:20
Speaker 1: relayed the message to his pilot, and the pilot pulled
8:22
Speaker 1: back on the yoke, and suddenly the plane wouldn't ascend.
8:26
Speaker 1: There was no more lift. Ice from the snowstorm had
8:30
Speaker 1: frozen on and around the tiny plane and was weighing
8:32
Speaker 1: it down. The plane would only go in one direction down. Okay,
8:37
Speaker 1: it was bad, but not that bad. They'd simply circle
8:40
Speaker 1: the airport, recalibrate their approach, and put the plane down safely.
8:44
Speaker 1: And the pilot began circling, and that's when he looked
8:47
Speaker 1: up from his cockpit's instrument panel and out of the
8:49
Speaker 1: cockpit's front window. To get a layer of the land
8:51
Speaker 1: before touching down, and what he saw was this nothing.
8:58
Speaker 1: The plane's windshield was completely frozen over. The pilot had
9:01
Speaker 1: forgotten to turn the windshield to frost on, and now
9:04
Speaker 1: it was too late. But no amount of heat melt
9:07
Speaker 1: this block of sheer ice on the windshield, and they
9:09
Speaker 1: couldn't see anything. The plane couldn't ascend, and they were
9:12
Speaker 1: going down fast and blind. Ray radioed into air traffic control.
9:18
Speaker 1: They had zero visibility for landing. Air traffic Control told
9:21
Speaker 1: them they were going to have to figure something out.
9:23
Speaker 1: The pilot needed visibility for those final few feet to
9:26
Speaker 1: prevent drifting upon descent, to prevent crashing, and the pilot
9:30
Speaker 1: was nervous. Ray could hear it in his voice. The
9:33
Speaker 1: rock journalists in the seat behind them started reciting Hail
9:36
Speaker 1: Mary's and the pilot turned to his instrument panel to
9:39
Speaker 1: make his final turn back toward the landing strip. He
9:41
Speaker 1: couldn't see anything, just ice, no flight tower, no lights
9:45
Speaker 1: on the strip, no nothing. Ray Charles was literally flying blind.
9:50
Speaker 1: There was one certain outcome defeat death, a plane crash.
9:56
Speaker 1: But then Ray Charles did what he'd done his whole life.
10:00
Speaker 1: Unable to see, he visualized where he wanted to be
10:03
Speaker 1: on the ground safe. He didn't accept his so called
10:06
Speaker 1: predetermined outcome because blindness had given him something few others had,
10:11
Speaker 1: true vision. Without sight, he literally could not see defeat.
10:15
Speaker 1: Sites that distracted others, that pulled attention elsewhere did not exist,
10:19
Speaker 1: and thus Ray Charles's imagination was given the freedom to
10:23
Speaker 1: manifest powerful outcomes unimaginable to others. Comparatively, Ray Charles wasn't
10:28
Speaker 1: blind compared to most, Ray Charles could see into the future,
10:33
Speaker 1: and in that moment, with his plane fast approaching certain doom,
10:37
Speaker 1: with his pilot's nerves betraying him, with his passenger in
10:40
Speaker 1: the back spitting hail Mary's and pissing himself, Ray Charles
10:44
Speaker 1: visualized a different outcome, a safe landing and lo and behold.
10:49
Speaker 1: With less than one hundred feet above the ground, the
10:51
Speaker 1: pilot saw something himself in the ice on the windshield,
10:55
Speaker 1: a pinprick of light slowly expanding to the size of
10:59
Speaker 1: a quarter to a half dollar. He leaned up put
11:03
Speaker 1: his eye into the hole. With his hand still on
11:05
Speaker 1: the controls and with Ray Charles by his side, the
11:07
Speaker 1: pilot was able to use the vision the hole and
11:09
Speaker 1: the ice gave him to see the landing strip and
11:11
Speaker 1: bring the plane down safely. When they landed, the pilot collapsed.
11:19
Speaker 1: Their rock journalists passenger was convinced an actual miracle had happened.
11:23
Speaker 1: That as hail Mary's had paid off, air traffic control
11:26
Speaker 1: workers came out of their tower down to the plane
11:28
Speaker 1: to see for themselves what had happened. They couldn't believe
11:31
Speaker 1: what they were witnessing, one tiny hole of which only
11:34
Speaker 1: one eye could peer through, surrounded by solid ice, on
11:37
Speaker 1: a plane completely frozen over. It was so improbable, this
11:41
Speaker 1: tiny hole, this portal to salvation. But there it was
11:45
Speaker 1: unexplainable except Ray. Charles didn't need an explanation. This was
11:50
Speaker 1: nothing new for him, because though he was blind, he'd
11:53
Speaker 1: been seeing the improbable his whole life. The teenage boys
12:24
Speaker 1: on the city bus were staring at him, trying to
12:27
Speaker 1: muzzle their excitement. It was coming up any minute now.
12:31
Speaker 1: Of the two Harlem natives, one of them was a skeptic,
12:34
Speaker 1: and a skepticism was about to make him pay. The
12:37
Speaker 1: bet was a quarter to see if the blind dude
12:39
Speaker 1: seated on the bus a couple rows down from them,
12:42
Speaker 1: could do it. So they waited as the bus passed
12:44
Speaker 1: block after New York City block on its way downtown,
12:48
Speaker 1: and the boy who made the bet, the believer, knew
12:51
Speaker 1: it was coming up next up. The bus chugged along
12:54
Speaker 1: at its normal speed, keeping pace with the bustling traffic.
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Speaker 1: Any second now, both boys perched on the edge of
13:00
Speaker 1: their seat, waiting, anticipating, alternately believing and unbelieving at the
13:05
Speaker 1: same time. And there it was. The blind dude in
13:10
Speaker 1: his seat reached up with his right hand pulled down
13:12
Speaker 1: the bus stop lever, indicating this was his stop, and
13:15
Speaker 1: the bus slowed itself over to the next stop, opened
13:18
Speaker 1: its door and let the blind dude out, whereupon he
13:21
Speaker 1: exited without a cane or a dog and made his
13:23
Speaker 1: way to wherever it was he was going on assistance
13:27
Speaker 1: pay up. The losing boy couldn't believe it. He forked
13:33
Speaker 1: over his quarterer. How did the blind dude know? How
13:35
Speaker 1: did he know which stop was his? The driver hadn't
13:38
Speaker 1: called out any stops or streets. There was no pre
13:40
Speaker 1: recorded message announcing the bus's progress blaring over a pa.
13:43
Speaker 1: The bus just chugged along, had a good clip, and
13:46
Speaker 1: the blind dude just knew where and when to make
13:49
Speaker 1: The bus stop it was crazy, except that it really wasn't.
13:53
Speaker 1: Ray Charles relied on his senses to get around. He
13:56
Speaker 1: could feel the bend in the dip of the road
13:58
Speaker 1: as the bus moved it told them where to get off.
14:01
Speaker 1: He could sense it, just like he could sense that
14:03
Speaker 1: I'm ed Erdgan, co founder and president of Atlantic Records,
14:06
Speaker 1: knew what he was talking about. Ahmed had told Ray
14:09
Speaker 1: that if he only saw pennies, well he'd see only pennies,
14:13
Speaker 1: but if he saw dollars, he in fact would eventually
14:16
Speaker 1: see dollars. Ray believed this in nineteen fifty two, at
14:21
Speaker 1: the time Atlantic Record signed Ray Charles. This is what
14:24
Speaker 1: qualified us straight talk in the music industry. So Ray
14:27
Speaker 1: Charles considered himself lucky, and it went about doing his
14:30
Speaker 1: and I'm at Erdigan's business, which at the time was
14:33
Speaker 1: making hits. His first few singles failed to set the
14:37
Speaker 1: world on fire. Ray was doing what he always did,
14:40
Speaker 1: his version of Nat King Cole. He'd sometimes spice it
14:43
Speaker 1: up with his version of Charles Brown. That approach worked
14:46
Speaker 1: in the club, why wouldn't it work in the studio.
14:49
Speaker 1: The answer was because the record buying public didn't want
14:51
Speaker 1: another mat King Cole or Charles Brown. They wanted something new,
14:55
Speaker 1: so Ray Charles hit the road. The road was tough,
15:05
Speaker 1: violent Chitlin circuit, roadhouses and dance halls, shootings, stabbings, robberies,
15:10
Speaker 1: all manner of vice and grift. If you weren't careful
15:13
Speaker 1: on the road, you'd let you wind up off the
15:16
Speaker 1: road and in a hospital, a jail or worse, the Morgue.
15:20
Speaker 1: And beyond the Chitlin circuit, there were the occasional segregated
15:23
Speaker 1: shows in the South. When Ray was simply a hired gun,
15:27
Speaker 1: there was little he could do about it. But later
15:29
Speaker 1: when he fronted his own bands, Ray Charles wouldn't stand
15:32
Speaker 1: for him. At a headlining show on Augusta, Georgia, a
15:35
Speaker 1: promoter wanted blacks upstairs in whites downstairs. Ray insisted he
15:40
Speaker 1: was fine with segregation if his loyal black audience could
15:43
Speaker 1: get the better downstairs seats, and the promoter refused. Ensued,
15:48
Speaker 1: Ray paid two thousand dollars for breach of contract. A
15:51
Speaker 1: line had been drawn, but later stands would break the
15:54
Speaker 1: other way. What Ray could see was a vision of
15:57
Speaker 1: integrated audiences in the South. For the most part. When
16:01
Speaker 1: it came to negativity, the type of negativity that can
16:04
Speaker 1: be debilitating for a performer. It was easy for Ray
16:07
Speaker 1: Charles to block it out and concentrate on playing. He
16:11
Speaker 1: literally could not see the problems posed by road life.
16:14
Speaker 1: He could sense the danger, knew how to steer clear
16:17
Speaker 1: of it. But because he was blind, he was immune
16:19
Speaker 1: to the petty stock, the nasty bits that drive the insecurity,
16:23
Speaker 1: the dirty looks in the attitude from the tough crowds,
16:26
Speaker 1: even the jealousy from drunk competitive alphas in the audience
16:30
Speaker 1: who worried about him stealing their dates. What was the
16:32
Speaker 1: little blind dude behind the piano going to actually do anyway?
16:36
Speaker 1: Sing their girls into the sack. That's exactly what happened.
16:43
Speaker 1: The after parties were legend usually an apartment held by
16:48
Speaker 1: the promoter where the band was allowed to shock up.
16:51
Speaker 1: Sometimes a boarding house, maybe, depending on what city they
16:54
Speaker 1: were in a hotel, but usually in an apartment where
16:56
Speaker 1: all men are of debauchery went down. Was in the
17:00
Speaker 1: john at the moment, getting down with what had become
17:03
Speaker 1: his daily ritual, shooting heroin, and there was no real reason.
17:08
Speaker 1: Just what musicians did back then, especially the jazz musicians.
17:11
Speaker 1: Ray revered, but jazz didn't have a monopoly on the horse,
17:15
Speaker 1: as Ray affectionately referred to him. Blues musicians indulged as well,
17:19
Speaker 1: and Ray Charles developed a taste early, and he found
17:22
Speaker 1: his way to the drug. While on the road with
17:24
Speaker 1: lowell Fulson, band members were shooting up and Ray wanted
17:28
Speaker 1: to know what the attraction was. Nobody pushed it on him.
17:31
Speaker 1: Ray Charles went into Heroin clear eyed, knowing full well
17:34
Speaker 1: the risk. He loved it. Heroin mellowed everything up, completely,
17:39
Speaker 1: loosened him up. It was like Reefer, but a deeper,
17:42
Speaker 1: heavier groove. Ray's ritual had him shooting up every day
17:46
Speaker 1: to start his morning, and then every night after the gig.
17:49
Speaker 1: Back in the early fifties, twenty year old reefers ran
17:52
Speaker 1: Ray a five spot and for another five Ray could
17:54
Speaker 1: had a bag of heroin to his weekly supply. Set
17:57
Speaker 1: him up good. He score every week so or whenever
18:00
Speaker 1: they rolled through one of the bigger cities. Right now,
18:03
Speaker 1: at the after party in the John, Ray could hear
18:06
Speaker 1: the party on the other side of the bathroom door
18:08
Speaker 1: kicking up a notch. Someone in the band put Duke
18:11
Speaker 1: Ellington's take the a train on the turntable was part joke,
18:14
Speaker 1: part Q for the real train, the sex train, as
18:17
Speaker 1: in quote unquote running train, one of the more popular
18:20
Speaker 1: group sex tricks. Ray and his band would partake in
18:23
Speaker 1: with whatever eager local gals were willing and able to
18:25
Speaker 1: mix it up on whatever night they rolled through town.
18:29
Speaker 1: Ray fingered through his toiletry's back for his works. He
18:32
Speaker 1: wasn't missing out on anything. He was right where he
18:35
Speaker 1: wanted to be. The train wasn't his thing anyway. Ray
18:38
Speaker 1: liked group sex, but it had to be more than
18:40
Speaker 1: a bunch of drunk bandmates stumbling around in an apartment
18:43
Speaker 1: naked to the Duke. Ray wanted it to mean something
18:46
Speaker 1: to all involved, to really feel it. Heroin helped him
18:50
Speaker 1: really feel it, sex, music, whatever, and then it would
18:54
Speaker 1: take it all away, literally and figuratively. Heroin was good
18:59
Speaker 1: for a rating, whatever feelings, physical or mental or ailing. Ray.
19:03
Speaker 1: Ray also knew that if he wasn't careful, Heroin would
19:06
Speaker 1: take him away as well, land him in jail and
19:09
Speaker 1: off stage for quite a long time. His first Heroin
19:14
Speaker 1: bust was in nineteen fifty five, A little bit of
19:17
Speaker 1: reefer and Heroin paraphernalia, A needle, a bird spoon. Miraculously
19:22
Speaker 1: he got off. He see. He was busted again in
19:24
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight in Philly. The cops burst in without
19:27
Speaker 1: a warrant, found his stash, and collared him without a warrant,
19:31
Speaker 1: though the CoP's case was thrown out a cord and
19:33
Speaker 1: Ray avoided jail. Nothing, not his arrests, his drug addiction,
19:37
Speaker 1: nor his blindness seemed could keep Ray Charles from doing
19:40
Speaker 1: what his mother compelled him to do. To be Ray Charles,
19:48
Speaker 1: he and I'm at Erican got down to business. Then
19:50
Speaker 1: that King cole knock Os wouldn't do. Ray had to
19:53
Speaker 1: dig deep, way down into his soul to find that
19:56
Speaker 1: big scary thing inside of him that made him well him.
20:00
Speaker 1: The prospect of revealing one's true self to the world
20:03
Speaker 1: through art is to the artist terrifying, mainly because there
20:08
Speaker 1: is a high probability that your art, which is now
20:10
Speaker 1: quite literally you, will be rejected. Most artists only have
20:14
Speaker 1: to deal with the prospect of the world rejecting their art,
20:17
Speaker 1: the thing they made, their album or song or painting
20:20
Speaker 1: or whatever. True artists, original artists, artists who take the
20:23
Speaker 1: greatest risks, who don't imitate, who quite literally express themselves
20:28
Speaker 1: into a wholly new and original subjective creation, have to
20:31
Speaker 1: deal with the prospect of the world rejecting whatever it
20:34
Speaker 1: is they created, but also with the world rejecting who
20:37
Speaker 1: they are. Because true artists are their art. The risk
20:42
Speaker 1: is massive, but so is the reward. Dollars not pennies.
20:47
Speaker 1: Ahmed Ertigan knew this and repeated it over and over
20:50
Speaker 1: again until Ray Charles knew it too, because the prospect
20:54
Speaker 1: of expressing oneself honestly cannot only be terrifying but also stifling.
20:59
Speaker 1: A'm ed Eritigain w one further and offered Ray Charles
21:01
Speaker 1: some lyrics to get him through the creative block, to
21:04
Speaker 1: provide just a touch of cover to better help him
21:07
Speaker 1: reach down into himself and pull out something that was
21:09
Speaker 1: uniquely him. Ahmet's lyrics were simple sexual double on tandra
21:15
Speaker 1: the mess around. Ray Charles knew about sex. It was
21:22
Speaker 1: just the spark he needed. He took a mets simple
21:24
Speaker 1: lyrics and applied them to an old gospel tune he'd
21:27
Speaker 1: known since his days back in Greensville, Florida as a boy.
21:31
Speaker 1: The melody might have been spiritual, but the music was blues,
21:34
Speaker 1: and the feel was something new, something that hadn't been
21:36
Speaker 1: heard before, something totally unique. It wasn't just blues, and
21:40
Speaker 1: it wasn't just rhythm. It was rhythm, and it was blues.
21:43
Speaker 1: That familiar, beloved gospel melody set over, jumped up, boogie woogie,
21:47
Speaker 1: The spiritual swapped for the secular, the hint of sex.
21:50
Speaker 1: It was genius. It was Ray Charles. Mess Around was
21:53
Speaker 1: a hit. Ray double down on his newfound combination of
21:57
Speaker 1: gospel and blues with his song I've Got a Woman,
22:00
Speaker 1: the melody directly nicked from the gospel tune It must
22:02
Speaker 1: be Jesus. It went straight to number two. He followed
22:06
Speaker 1: it up with this Little Girl of Mine, a fool
22:08
Speaker 1: for You, drowned in my own tears Hallelujah, I Love
22:10
Speaker 1: Her So all singles for Atlantic that traded on Ray's
22:14
Speaker 1: patented mix of gospel and blues, all of which charted
22:17
Speaker 1: and culminated in nineteen fifty nine with the release of
22:20
Speaker 1: the single What I Say, which went to number six
22:24
Speaker 1: on the Billboard chart into number one on the Our
22:26
Speaker 1: Beach Chart. But more than that, it was a classic
22:29
Speaker 1: in its own time, and by the end of the
22:32
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, the genius of Ray Charles was evident for
22:36
Speaker 1: all to see. We'll be right back after this word
22:45
Speaker 1: word word. McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, nineteen sixty five. It
22:55
Speaker 1: was once called the Asylum for the Insane, but sometime
22:58
Speaker 1: back around the turn of the century they dropped that
23:00
Speaker 1: name for something less literal, more inviting, so McLain Hospital
23:04
Speaker 1: it was. Ray Charles was cold and just his hospital gown.
23:08
Speaker 1: The room he was in was barren and freezing, not
23:11
Speaker 1: to mention slightly terrifying. Sites didn't freak Ray Charles out,
23:16
Speaker 1: but sounds. Sounds could be downright horrific. The shrieks of
23:20
Speaker 1: terror coming from elsewhere in the hospital were so strong
23:23
Speaker 1: he himself could taste the tube of rubber, the one
23:26
Speaker 1: the orderly shoved in your mouth to make sure you
23:28
Speaker 1: didn't bite your tongue off while they administered their electric
23:31
Speaker 1: shock treatments. The sound of the electricity jewels, the shake
23:35
Speaker 1: of the patient spasming on a metal chair, its feet
23:38
Speaker 1: sharply digging into the linoleum floor was downright chilling, same
23:42
Speaker 1: as the room he was in. On purpose, the hospital
23:46
Speaker 1: is trying to freeze Ray Charles the junkie out, except
23:50
Speaker 1: it wasn't working. For most junkies trying to wean off
23:54
Speaker 1: of heroin. The cold helped speed withdrawls, but Ray Charles
23:58
Speaker 1: wasn't having withdrawls. He'd been there, done that, There was
24:01
Speaker 1: no weaning for him. He'd kicked cold turkey for the judge.
24:06
Speaker 1: That judge was a real motherfucker, and Ray knew his
24:08
Speaker 1: best chance at mercy was to kick Heroin before the
24:10
Speaker 1: sentencing portion of his trial for his most recent bust,
24:14
Speaker 1: the one in Boston. A couple months prior Logan Airfield,
24:25
Speaker 1: Ray's plane landed without incident after a performance in Canada.
24:29
Speaker 1: He and his bandmates exited and headed to the hotel.
24:32
Speaker 1: The bite in the Boston air was nastier than Ray
24:35
Speaker 1: was used to. He was looking forward to a hot
24:37
Speaker 1: shower in the warm embrace of his fix, but when
24:40
Speaker 1: he got to his room, he realized he left his
24:43
Speaker 1: works on his plane. He had his assistant grab a
24:46
Speaker 1: cab and the two headed back to Logan to his
24:48
Speaker 1: plane to grab his heroin. Ray Charles did just that,
24:52
Speaker 1: and then Ray Charles was grabbed by a pair of
24:54
Speaker 1: federal agents drug squad. They had been watching the notorious
24:58
Speaker 1: drugged out musician hit to his many previous arrests and
25:01
Speaker 1: championing at the bit to bring him down. The headlines
25:04
Speaker 1: alone would be worth it, and headlines there were. Ray
25:08
Speaker 1: Charles busted again for heroin. Ray's profile at the time
25:13
Speaker 1: was too damn big to keep his bust quiet. A
25:16
Speaker 1: loud arrest meant a loud trial, and the loud trial
25:19
Speaker 1: often meant a stiff sentence. Ray got hip quick. He
25:23
Speaker 1: wasn't about to be made an example of. He wasn't
25:25
Speaker 1: about to do real time to become a cautionary tale
25:28
Speaker 1: something parents and music teachers tell their kids. Stay off
25:31
Speaker 1: them drugs. You're gonna end up in jail, just like that,
25:34
Speaker 1: Ray Charles. Fuck that. Ray hooked himself up with the
25:41
Speaker 1: top notch attorney. Justice might have been blind like Ray Charles,
25:45
Speaker 1: but she wasn't cheap like Ray Charles. Ray pooned up
25:47
Speaker 1: the bread for the best attorney money could buy. Then
25:50
Speaker 1: he doubled down and shelled out the cash for a
25:52
Speaker 1: famous Vienna shrink, Frederic Hacker, the good Doctor, would play
25:56
Speaker 1: nice in court with the judge. Ray checked himself into
25:59
Speaker 1: the docks Beverly Hill's clinic and got down to the
26:01
Speaker 1: business of getting clean. No weeding, just cold turkey. It
26:06
Speaker 1: was violent, painful, immensely distressing, both physically and mentally, but
26:11
Speaker 1: Ray pulled through. As always, he had an image, a
26:14
Speaker 1: powerful image of himself in his head, future Ray, who
26:18
Speaker 1: he will become. This visualization was nothing new. Visualization, or
26:28
Speaker 1: manifestation as it's sometimes called, is a powerful tool that
26:32
Speaker 1: has been used by many of the world's biggest celebrities,
26:35
Speaker 1: who visualize their success, the things they don't have, and
26:38
Speaker 1: then manifest them. Oprah Winfrey is a forceful advocate of visualization, or,
26:43
Speaker 1: as she calls it, the secret, having famously employed the
26:47
Speaker 1: tactic to land her career making role in Steven Spielberg's
26:50
Speaker 1: film The Color Purple. Jim Carrey, when he was a
26:53
Speaker 1: broke struggling actor, wrote himself a ten million dollar check
26:57
Speaker 1: and kept it in his wallet, knowing that one day
26:59
Speaker 1: he would cash. A decade later, he earned ten million
27:03
Speaker 1: dollars to star and Dumb and Dumber. Lady Gaga has
27:06
Speaker 1: long held a singular vision of herself. She reminds herself
27:09
Speaker 1: of that vision every day and regularly repeats various affirmations
27:13
Speaker 1: to help keep her on her path toward realizing that
27:16
Speaker 1: vision of herself. And Will Smith is also a strong
27:19
Speaker 1: believer in visualization, saying, quote, the universe is not a
27:22
Speaker 1: thing that is going to push us around. That the
27:25
Speaker 1: world and people and situations are not things that are
27:28
Speaker 1: going to push us around. We are going to command
27:30
Speaker 1: and demand that the universe become what we want it
27:33
Speaker 1: to be. And for Will Smith, of course, that meant
27:36
Speaker 1: becoming one of the biggest stars in the history of Hollywood.
27:40
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, I too believe and have believed
27:43
Speaker 1: in visualization. Going back to the months prior to launching
27:46
Speaker 1: this podcast, I had a vision of what I wanted
27:49
Speaker 1: it to become and still do, and that vision was
27:51
Speaker 1: of course closely aligned with who I wanted to become
27:55
Speaker 1: and now with who I am. I succeeded because I
27:58
Speaker 1: believed and I believed because the evident for visualization is everywhere,
28:02
Speaker 1: not only in the examples I just listed, but throughout history,
28:05
Speaker 1: especially in this country in America. What men and women
28:09
Speaker 1: have achieved the odds and circumstances they overcame, odds and
28:12
Speaker 1: circumstances much more challenging than the ones I was facing.
28:16
Speaker 1: At some point, as I got older and maybe a
28:18
Speaker 1: little smarter, it became clear to me that in this
28:21
Speaker 1: world anything is possible because the world is what we
28:24
Speaker 1: make of it. Outside distractions people's opinions, their emotions, politics, whatever.
28:29
Speaker 1: We have the power to ignore it, to block out
28:32
Speaker 1: the noise, and to choose something else, to make something else.
28:36
Speaker 1: But first we have to see it. Ray Charles saw
28:41
Speaker 1: it right after he went blind. The vision of who
28:43
Speaker 1: he was to become, and a blind, jailed junkie was
28:47
Speaker 1: not what he saw a genre melding, musical genius powerful
28:50
Speaker 1: enough to bring black and white culture into one. That's
28:53
Speaker 1: how we saw himself, as big and talented and widely
28:57
Speaker 1: loved by audiences of any color, as his hero in
28:59
Speaker 1: that case, Cole was before him, as Frank Sinatra currently was.
29:03
Speaker 1: This is who Ray Charles wanted to become. But to
29:06
Speaker 1: do that he needed to kick heroin and impress that
29:09
Speaker 1: damn judge and delaying a light sentence on him. So
29:12
Speaker 1: that's what he did, kicked, powered through the withdrawals, committed
29:16
Speaker 1: to the Shrinks program, and came out clean. They had
29:22
Speaker 1: hauled him into McLean to test him to see if
29:24
Speaker 1: he'd relapsed since the judge suspended his sentence, and if
29:27
Speaker 1: he had, he'd be shipped off to prison. He of course,
29:30
Speaker 1: hadn't relapsed. No amount of cold air pumped into his
29:33
Speaker 1: barren hospital room is going to bring on heroin withdrawals
29:36
Speaker 1: because there was no longer any heroin in his system.
29:39
Speaker 1: He got off easy, five years probation, with the freedom
29:43
Speaker 1: to travel and perform as a free man. Ray Charles
29:46
Speaker 1: bounded his plane for the next gig. The plane was
30:09
Speaker 1: making its descent. Every single passenger aboard knew they were
30:13
Speaker 1: going to die. Everything was happening so fast, and they'd
30:17
Speaker 1: just taken off from Boston some forty minutes ago. Things
30:20
Speaker 1: got bad quick. If death has a taste, it was
30:24
Speaker 1: in the mouth of everyone seated on a flight eleven
30:27
Speaker 1: that morning, hail Mary's tears. Soon as the plane speeded
30:31
Speaker 1: faster and faster toward its crash, screams, but then a
30:35
Speaker 1: glimmer of hope. The plane jerked itself violently up just
30:39
Speaker 1: to touch, and the passengers felt it for a moment calm.
30:44
Speaker 1: They seemed to be cruising again. Maybe this wouldn't end
30:47
Speaker 1: in destruction. But then another violent march, a gut pulling acceleration.
30:53
Speaker 1: The field of the plane's nose dipped back down. It
30:55
Speaker 1: was slight but definitive. They were blazing through the sky
30:58
Speaker 1: again in an unimaginable sit be a death plunge if
31:01
Speaker 1: the river was one. More screams, more prayers, more. I
31:12
Speaker 1: want you all to know that America Day is offended
31:19
Speaker 1: deed in prayer for the people who live lost here, I.
31:29
Speaker 2: Gotta hear you, he rest of the world. Here, you
31:35
Speaker 2: and the people who don't these feelings, people who don't
31:39
Speaker 2: these feelings down, well, here's all.
31:43
Speaker 1: Of the soup your home. Thank you for your heart work,
31:50
Speaker 1: thank you for making a nation pound and may God
31:53
Speaker 1: bless America, and make God bless America. America the beautiful
32:07
Speaker 1: had been beat up. September eleventh, two thousand and one.
32:10
Speaker 1: Was unlike anything Ray Charles and the rest of the
32:12
Speaker 1: country had ever seen. It shook the country to its foundation.
32:17
Speaker 1: Ray had seen rallying presidential speeches before he'd even met
32:21
Speaker 1: his fair share of presidents. He'd performed at Richard Nixon's
32:24
Speaker 1: White House, played at Ronald Reagan's inaugural and at the
32:27
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four Republican National Convention, and then at Bill
32:31
Speaker 1: Clinton's inaugural too. He liked them all despite their flaws.
32:35
Speaker 1: There were politicians, after all, and regardless of which party
32:38
Speaker 1: they were in or what they promised, Ray Charles knew
32:41
Speaker 1: that if he wanted something in this world. Relying on
32:44
Speaker 1: a politician wasn't going to get him anywhere. He needed
32:47
Speaker 1: to rely on himself. But this speech from George W.
32:51
Speaker 1: Bush was different. There he was President of the United States,
32:55
Speaker 1: standing in the rubble of the twin towers, his arm
32:58
Speaker 1: around a fireman's, speaking through a bullhorn to assembled first responders, cops,
33:03
Speaker 1: more firemen, EMTs, construction workers, all there doing the unthinkable
33:08
Speaker 1: work of digging American bodies out from the pulverized remains
33:11
Speaker 1: of cement, glass, plaster, office equipment, and everything else that
33:16
Speaker 1: was once the World Trade Center. There was no teleprompter.
33:20
Speaker 1: There was clearly no prepared, pre written speech. There was
33:23
Speaker 1: just emotion, the best kind, uncalculated, real visceral. Somebody at
33:30
Speaker 1: the back of the gathered crowd yelled to the President,
33:32
Speaker 1: we can't hear you. George W. Bush improvises, I can
33:36
Speaker 1: hear you. The rest of the world hears you. He
33:40
Speaker 1: believed in what he was saying, and on that day,
33:42
Speaker 1: just three days from the worst attack on American soil
33:45
Speaker 1: since Pearl Harbor in nineteen forty one, the rest of
33:48
Speaker 1: the country believed it too. It was one of those
33:51
Speaker 1: rare moments of consensus in America. It wouldn't last. Within weeks,
33:56
Speaker 1: America would begin siphoning itself off into familiar tribe. Never
34:00
Speaker 1: wanted to let a good crisis go to waste. Republicans
34:04
Speaker 1: would eventually use the situation to grandly and disingenuously reorganize
34:08
Speaker 1: their United States as imperialist ambitions in the Middle East,
34:12
Speaker 1: and Democrats would use the situation to consolidate obstruction for
34:16
Speaker 1: Bush's entire agenda. Both sides succeeded to varying degrees, and
34:21
Speaker 1: both sides also failed fantastically, you know, like they always do.
34:26
Speaker 1: But on that day, with the president down there, with
34:29
Speaker 1: the people down in the rubble, bullhorn in his hand,
34:32
Speaker 1: shouting from the heart like an impassioned Southern preacher, Ray
34:35
Speaker 1: Charles saw hope, and he also saw himself as someone
34:39
Speaker 1: who could remind America of its beauty. By two thousand
34:43
Speaker 1: and one, Ray Charles was somewhat of an American institution.
34:47
Speaker 1: After Kicking Dope, he had rebounded with a number one
34:50
Speaker 1: hit on the R and B charts, the ironically titled
34:53
Speaker 1: Let's Go Get Stoned. But over the decades, in a
34:56
Speaker 1: discography now over fifty records long, his three number one
34:59
Speaker 1: hit hits and his two gold records barely scratched the
35:02
Speaker 1: surface of his influence on the music industry in pop
35:05
Speaker 1: culture in general, from Cola commercials to Blues Brothers cameos
35:10
Speaker 1: to current Hollywood talk of a biopic of his life.
35:14
Speaker 1: Ray Charles had become part of the fabric of Americana.
35:18
Speaker 1: So naturally, when America was hurting, Ray Charles wanted to
35:22
Speaker 1: help rally the country. Like the President, Ray Charles knew
35:25
Speaker 1: about hope. He also knew about grit and resilience. Ray
35:30
Speaker 1: Charles was a symbol of resilience, a symbol of what
35:33
Speaker 1: you can become no matter where you come from, no
35:35
Speaker 1: matter how far down you are. And America at the
35:38
Speaker 1: moment was down. But Ray Charles, the blind kid from
35:42
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow South, who'd never seen himself as anything
35:45
Speaker 1: but capable and the equal, was about to remind America
35:48
Speaker 1: of its beauty. October twenty eighth, two thousand and one,
35:53
Speaker 1: Game two of the World Series, a series which was
35:56
Speaker 1: delayed because of the al Qaeda attack on the World
35:58
Speaker 1: Trade Center, the hometown Diamondbacks were up a game against
36:03
Speaker 1: the vaunted New York Yankees, who'd won the previous three
36:06
Speaker 1: World series titles. The pregame Ceremony Packed House, America on Edge,
36:11
Speaker 1: America on the.
36:13
Speaker 2: Brink, Ladies and gentlemen, to honor America Araa with the
36:19
Speaker 2: singing of Amratha the Beautiful, Please well go the man
36:25
Speaker 2: and his soul, Mister Ray Will.
36:30
Speaker 1: Charles America the Beautiful for a couple minutes there. In
36:37
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, the genius of Ray Charles had
36:39
Speaker 1: reimagined the Catherine Lee Bates song into a newfound national anthem.
36:44
Speaker 1: The emotion in the performance is chilling, hair raising, with
36:48
Speaker 1: nearly fifty thousand in attendance and sixteen million watching at home,
36:53
Speaker 1: all keyed in to the same emotion. Hope, white, black, left, right, red, blue,
37:00
Speaker 1: Republican Democrat. None of it matters. There is a fusion
37:04
Speaker 1: that happens racing the song, a mass melding of oneness
37:08
Speaker 1: of optimism. Just weeks after a near death blow in Arizona.
37:12
Speaker 1: It's a phoenix rising, a reminder of our collective resilience,
37:16
Speaker 1: a reminder to never lose sight of not only who
37:18
Speaker 1: we are, but perhaps more important, of who we can become.
37:22
Speaker 1: A reminder from a true visionary, a blind visionary. It's
37:27
Speaker 1: Ray Charles Embody and Spirit in Soul Genius. I'm Jake
37:38
Speaker 1: Brennan and this this Disgraceland from Disgraceland was created by
38:01
Speaker 1: Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
38:05
Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
38:07
Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
38:11
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38:14
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Speaker 1: Rock a Roller. He then