Brehm Center

            Ray Charles, the music icon, died on June 10, 2004. Just four months later, actor Jamie Foxx brought his life to the theater in the biopic, Ray.  Perhaps neither date caught your attention at the time, but when the DVD comes out, don’t miss the chance to understand something of this genius, born of joy and pain. Ray Charles changed the history of 20^th century culture through his music, which spanned the genres of Gospel, Rhythm & Blues, Jazz, Rock & Roll, and Country. In an era of segregation, his music crossed all boundaries and brought people together, as it continues to do today. During his career Charles earned twelve Grammy Awards, recorded 75 albums and had 76 of his singles on the best-selling charts.  He was a Kennedy Center honoree and a National Medal of the Arts recipient. Ray will give you a glimpse into the man, his community and his music.

            In Ray you hear some of Charles’ best music: “I Got a Woman,” “Drown in My Own Tears,” “What’d I Say,” “Hit the Road Jack,” “Unchain My Heart,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and “Georgia on My Mind.”  Pages could be written just about these songs and their effect on American music and culture (e.g., how many times have you heard “Hit the Road Jack” at a baseball field when a pitcher is taken out of a game?), but they are only a taste of what is in the film. Mr. Charles gave the film’s director and music supervisor full access to his vaults of recordings, and forty different songs are heard in the film. Just the opportunity to hear Ray Charles sing again makes this film worth the experience.

             If the music of this gifted artist isn’t enough to entice you to rent the DVD, then do so to see Jamie Foxx portray Charles on screen. A gifted musician himself (he once directed a church choir), and much loved for his comedy and acting skills, Foxx captures the movements, conversational style, energy, piano playing, and spirit of Ray Charles. (Foxx immersed himself in Charles music, attended classes at the Braille Institute, and walked around for weeks with his eyes taped shut for twelve hours a day to gain an intimate understanding of blindness.)  Critics and viewers alike think they are watching a young Ray Charles. You will too. As A.O. Scott described Foxx’s performance, “You get the sense that he is not just pretending to be Ray Charles, but that he understands him completely and knows how to communicate this understanding through every word and gesture, without explaining a thing.”  While Foxx actually learned the piano parts as he recreated in the film recording sessions and performances with other musicians, he lip-synched the songs. Nobody, not even an accomplished singer like Foxx, could sing like Ray Charles. But Foxx’s amazing portrayal should win him an Oscar and/or other acting awards.

            And if neither the music nor the actor persuade you to see Ray, then rent the movie to take a journey. Ray Charles was not only a pioneering musician and a savvy businessman (his record deal at Paramount was historic for any musician, gaining control of his own master records and a larger percentage of profits than even Frank Sinatra), he was a man in search of his own redemption. From flashbacks of his childhood we learn of his family’s poverty, his father’s absence, his sense of guilt over his younger brother’s death as he watched paralyzed, and shortly after, his own blindness (the result of glaucoma).  These childhood traumas, countered in part by the faithful strength and sacrificial love of his mother, follow Ray Charles throughout his life.  The film portrays poignantly the paradoxes of his life. As an adult we see him both struggle with his faith (why would God let his brother die or he go blind?) and seek God’s direction and companionship (reading a Braille Bible and playing Gospel music in his small apartment,  we see Ray  “at church”). He creates life-celebrating music, even while he is self-destructing with heroin. He loves his wife yet is an adulterer on the road. Many try to take advantage of him either due to his blindness or his race. And yet, God used music, and the faith of two women—his mother and his wife, to inspire, to convict, and ultimately to bring healing. Ray Charles’ life was as complex as his music. As a viewer you will both want to dance in joy and weep in desolation—sometimes, as with his music, simultaneously. His life was filled with pain, trouble and sorrows, yet there was exaltation, beauty and redemption. 

            We Christians are people who live our lives in the stretch between lament and praise. Our Scripture reminds us of this tension through the likes of  Naomi and Ruth, the Preacher of Ecclesiastes, Job, and even great King David.  Though Ray Charles bore the image of God in his musical genius and energy, he was also broken.  And though he was a sinner, he was also a creative child of God.  As Paul said, “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”  ( II Corinthians 4:7)  We give thanks for the sinner-saints like Ray Charles who remind us of our creatureliness and at the same time give us a new language to praise the Creator.

Catherine M. Barsotti

Robert K. Johnston