绰号：天才　Genius　雷兄弟　Brother Ray
他一生共结婚两次，曾有很多女朋友，并且子孙满堂，生前共有12个子女，20个孙辈，5个曾孙辈。
6岁时因青光眼而失明。
在拍摄一则汽车广告时，他在无人帮助的情况下独自驾车穿过了“死亡谷沙漠”。雷说这是他一生中最兴奋的经历。
他著名的金曲《ICan’tStopLovingYou》在1962年的美国公告牌排行榜上连续五周蝉联第一位。
1986年进入美国摇滚名人堂。
1987年，获得格莱美终身成就奖。
他曾经沉溺于毒品不能自拔20多年，直到1965年在波士顿机场因吸毒被捕后，他才从此彻底远离毒品。
1998年，获得瑞典皇家音乐学院颁发的“保拉音乐奖”。
1999年，他被俄亥俄州的威尔伯福斯大学授予人文学荣誉博士学位。
2003年秋做了臀部置换手术，为此他取消了自己的演唱会，这是他入行53年来首次取消演唱会。
虽然雷双目失明，但他是一个狂热的象棋爱好者，他曾在演唱会上和片场和他人进行象棋比赛。
他曾经鼓励过众多失明的音乐人继续他们的音乐事业，如罗尼·米萨普和泰瑞·吉珀斯等。
2004年，他入选《滚石》杂志评选的史上最伟大的10位摇滚艺人。
他逝世后，好莱坞为了纪念他拍摄了他的传记电影《雷》，雷由黑人演员杰米·福克斯扮演。
“其实，我一直在关注泰勒·海克福德制作这部传记电影的进程，同时，我并不吝啬给予全权的帮助。可以说，海克福德真实地重现了我的一生，不只包括闪光的正面，还记录了黑暗的侧面……我很愿意将自己所面对的考验和苦难通过大银幕展现给尽可能多的人，它们从小就伴随着我坎坷的步伐，即使在我迈入音乐殿堂之时，也从不曾远去。海克福德选择了一个非常好的角度去体验生命中不同的侧面，我也很高兴告诉每一个人是如何从连续的不幸中治愈心灵的伤痛的——也许你在看影片的时候正在经历相似的苦难，然而即使是生命中的最低潮，只要你不放弃生命、不放弃灵魂，最终会寻求到出路而走出困境，就像我一样。”
在雷·查尔斯去世几个月前的一次采访中，雷·查尔斯对自己的传记电影《雷》说出了以上这些话。2004年6月10号，他因肝病的并发症病逝于加州，享年73岁。灵歌教母阿蕾莎·弗兰克林闻讯后，感慨地说：“一个伟大的灵魂将受到永远的爱戴，他有一副让人终身难忘的歌喉。”几个月之后，这部没有枪战和特技的传记电影开始在美国票房榜占据前十位，再过几个月，杰米·福克斯因为在电影里完美重现了这位伟大的钢琴手，获得了第77届奥斯卡最佳男主角。在这一年的葛莱美音乐奖，也将年度专辑和年度唱片奖颁给了这位去世的老人，这个黑人笑起来，那排整齐的牙齿就像黑夜里的沙滩一样。从不幸开始
3岁开始弹钢琴，6岁失明，15岁父母双亡，之后被迫退学，在舞曲乐团中谋职，18岁开始录音，唱到73岁。这种类似省略号的描述，并不会减少他身后的所给予我们的意义。在他身上，我们看到了音乐所应有的面貌，自由、真实、毫无拘束，不是挂在城头用于标榜与猎取的大旗，而是挂在窗户上的一幅普通窗帘。雷·查尔斯在乡村、蓝调、灵魂、爵士、BigBand等音乐类型里来回自如，自如得像从厨房到卧室，再转身到阳台，音乐里的篱藩教条对他来说根本不存在，他忽略了一个形式主义者必有的疑惑，直接将音乐从心灵中流淌出来：“打从我出生起，音乐就在我的体内滋长，音乐是我身体的一部分，就像是我的血液一样。”
1930年，雷·查尔斯出生在乔治亚州一个贫穷的黑人家庭。不久他和家人搬到美国南部的佛罗里达州，然而随着经济大萧条的日益加深，雷的童年愈发充满了悲剧性。5岁时，他亲年目睹了弟弟在母亲的洗衣池中溺水身亡的惨剧，然后到了6岁，残酷的青光眼疾病又永远地夺去了他视力。
尽管生活是残酷的，但雷·查尔斯还是幸运的，他有一个伟大的母亲，不断地鼓励他自强自立。但是大多数人也许并不知道，他的母亲并不是他的生母，雷是他父亲和一个少女的私生子。7岁时雷的母亲把他送进入佛罗里达的圣奥古斯丁盲哑学校，在8年的学习中，雷·查尔斯学会了用盲文记谱，并掌握了古典钢琴、竖笛、管风琴、萨克斯、小号等乐器。少年时代的雷欣赏大乐队时代阿蒂·肖的黑管演奏，也钟爱古典作曲家肖邦的作品。在夜深人静的时候，雷还喜欢一个人静静聆听电台播放的乡村音乐节目“奥普里之家”、福音音乐以及工人阶级的蓝调音乐。
15岁那年，雷·查尔斯的父母相继去世了。这一年，成为孤儿的雷开始了四处演奏的流浪音乐家生涯。雷跟随一些流浪音乐家从城市到乡村，再从乡村到城市，几乎走遍了大半个美国。1948年他踏上了西雅图之旅，并在那儿遇见了终身的好友、音乐大师昆西·琼斯，还组成了自己的三人爵士乐队。1953年，23岁的雷来到新奥尔良，正是在那里，雷的才华真正开始显露出来——那时他开始为吉他大师斯利姆的录音唱片作钢琴伴奏，在他们合作过的唱片中，就包括斯利姆后来销量达200万张的唱片《我曾做过的事》。与斯利姆的合作使查尔斯有了更多受唱片公司关注的机会，他很快便开始为自己创作的歌曲录制唱片。
确立乐坛大师地位
1954年，雷·查尔斯录制了他的处女作《我有一个女人》，由此创立了一种新的音乐风格“布鲁斯灵歌”，这种世俗与宗教相结合、感情色彩浓烈的黑人音乐迅速得到了许多乐迷的青睐。他的嗓音浑厚、深沉，富有磁性，既有布鲁斯歌手的高亢，又不失流行歌手的柔情和忧郁。他用这种独特的嗓音完美地表达出自己对冷暖人间的感悟。
此后，雷·查尔斯一首带有浓郁美国南部特色的布鲁斯歌曲《我心中的乔治亚》被定为美国乔治亚州的州歌，而《上路吧，杰克》和《打开我心》也成为了家喻户晓的热门歌曲，其中《上路吧，杰克》还为他赢得了1961年的格莱美最佳布鲁斯歌曲奖，由此确立了他乐坛大师的地位。但大师也并非是完美的。雷早年沉迷毒品二十多年，并曾因吸毒而被捕。他对女人的嗜好也让他受到不少的非议和指责。出生贫寒的他成名后拥有了好莱坞比弗利山的房产。尽管他享受毒品带来的虚幻，但他却一直保有着异常睿智、敏捷的象棋天赋。他73年充满矛盾的人生就像美国人生活体验的总和，而他的独特就在于能在矛盾的生活中将人生光辉灿烂的一面发挥到极致。

Ray Charles was the musician most responsible for developing soul music. Singers like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson also did a great deal to pioneer the form, but Charles did even more to devise a new form of black pop by merging '50s R&B with gospel-powered vocals, adding plenty of flavor from contemporary jazz, blues, and (in the '60s) country. Then there was his singing; his style was among the most emotional and easily identifiable of any 20th century performer, up there with the likes of Elvis and Billie Holiday. He was also a superb keyboard player, arranger, and bandleader. The brilliance of his 1950s and '60s work, however, can't obscure the fact that he made few classic tracks after the mid-'60s, though he recorded often and performed until the year before his death.

Blind since the age of six (from glaucoma), Charles studied composition and learned many instruments at the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and the Blind. His parents had died by his early teens, and he worked as a musician in Florida for a while before using his savings to move to Seattle in 1947. By the late '40s, he was recording in a smooth pop/R&B style derivative of Nat "King" Cole and Charles Brown. He got his first Top Ten R&B hit with "Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand" in 1951. Charles' first recordings came in for their fair share of criticism, as they were much milder and less original than the classics that would follow, although they're actually fairly enjoyable, showing strong hints of the skills that were to flower in a few years.

In the early '50s, Charles' sound started to toughen as he toured with Lowell Fulson, went to New Orleans to work with Guitar Slim (playing piano on and arranging Slim's huge R&B hit, "The Things That I Used to Do"), and got a band together for R&B star Ruth Brown. It was at Atlantic Records that Ray Charles truly found his voice, consolidating the gains of recent years and then some with "I Got a Woman," a number-two R&B hit in 1955. This is the song most frequently singled out as his pivotal performance, on which Charles first truly let go with his unmistakable gospel-ish moan, backed by a tight, bouncy horn-driven arrangement.

Throughout the '50s, Charles ran off a series of R&B hits that, although they weren't called "soul" at the time, did a lot to pave the way for soul by presenting a form of R&B that was sophisticated without sacrificing any emotional grit. "This Little Girl of Mine," "Drown in My Own Tears," "Hallelujah I Love Her So," "Lonely Avenue," and "The Right Time" were all big hits. But Charles didn't really capture the pop audience until "What'd I Say," which caught the fervor of the church with its pleading vocals, as well as the spirit of rock & roll with its classic electric piano line. It was his first Top Ten pop hit, and one of his final Atlantic singles, as he left the label at the end of the '50s for ABC.

One of the chief attractions of the ABC deal for Charles was a much greater degree of artistic control of his recordings. He put it to good use on early-'60s hits like "Unchain My Heart" and "Hit the Road Jack," which solidified his pop stardom with only a modicum of polish attached to the R&B he had perfected at Atlantic. In 1962, he surprised the pop world by turning his attention to country & western music, topping the charts with the "I Can't Stop Loving You" single, and making a hugely popular album (in an era in which R&B/soul LPs rarely scored high on the charts) with Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. Perhaps it shouldn't have been so surprising; Charles had always been eclectic, recording quite a bit of straight jazz at Atlantic, with noted jazz musicians like David "Fathead" Newman and Milt Jackson.

Charles remained extremely popular through the mid-'60s, scoring big hits like "Busted," "You Are My Sunshine," "Take These Chains From My Heart," and "Crying Time," although his momentum was slowed by a 1965 bust for heroin. This led to a year-long absence from performing, but he picked up where he left off with "Let's Go Get Stoned" in 1966. Yet by this time Charles was focusing increasingly less on rock and soul, in favor of pop tunes, often with string arrangements, that seemed aimed more at the easy listening audience than anyone else. Charles' influence on the rock mainstream was as apparent as ever; Joe Cocker and Steve Winwood in particular owe a great deal of their style to him, and echoes of his phrasing can be heard more subtly in the work of greats like Van Morrison.

One approaches sweeping criticism of Charles with hesitation; he was an American institution, after all, and his vocal powers barely diminished over his half-century career. The fact remains, though, that his work after the late '60s on record was very disappointing. Millions of listeners yearned for a return to the all-out soul of his 1955-1965 classics, but Charles had actually never been committed to soul above all else. Like Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley, his focus was more upon all-around pop than many realize; his love of jazz, country, and pop standards was evident, even if his more earthy offerings were the ones that truly broke ground and will stand the test of time. He dented the charts (sometimes the country ones) occasionally, and commanded devoted international concert audiences whenever he felt like it. For good or ill, he ensured his imprint upon the American mass consciousness in the 1990s by singing several ads for Diet Pepsi. He also recorded three albums during the '90s for Warner Bros., but remained most popular as a concert draw. In 2002, he released Thanks for Bringing Love Around Again on his own Crossover imprint, and the following year began recording an album of duets featuring B.B. King, Willie Nelson, Michael McDonald, and James Taylor. After hip replacement surgery in 2003, he scheduled a tour for the following summer, but was forced to cancel an appearance in March 2004. Three months later, on June 10, 2004, Ray Charles succumbed to liver disease at his home in Beverly Hills, CA.