Ray Charles

by Michael Lydon (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $3.25

  Brother Ray and I now tour the world, but in the Fifties we worked our way up through the southern chitlin circuit. This book gets down to the nitty-gritty of those days, the smoke, the sweat, and the music. B B KingThis makes for exciting reading.Lydon's portrait is a highly engaging one, building into a mammoth account that covers the singer's decline in the 1970s as well as his resurgence a decade later. Lydon's understanding of both Charles's appeal and his impact on popular music has a convincing authority, and his frank discussion of the more unsavoury aspect's of the singers life - heroine addiction and numerous infidelities - brings a sobering shade to the colourful image of the man whom Stevie Wonder respectfully refers to as Uncle Ray. Independent on Sunday