Ray Charles passed away today… I can honestly say I didn’t know that much about his life, other than being familiar with his “hits”. Of course, I knew that he was a huge influence on soul music as well. But on NPR they were playing clips of interviews with him over the years, and one thing really struck me as being truly astonishing, not just for his time, but as also being virtually unheard of today as well:
Ray Charles owned his own music.
Not just the publishing. He owned the master recordings too. Apparently, when he first signed with Atlantic in the late 1950s, they built him a state-of-the-art recording studio in his home, but he paid for it. He retained complete creative control over his music. Atlantic told him “You worry about the music, we’ll worry about the marketing.” Amazing. Now that is how the music industry should operate.