Rays Adulthood and Career; Category 2; Entry 1

 Early Career:

                Rays mother died in the year of 1945, Ray didn’t return to school after her death. He then stayed in Jacksonville, Florida with some old friends of his mothers. For around about a year he just played the piano for a few bands over at the Ritz Theatre. He later moved to Orlando and a little later on went ahead and moved off to Tampa where he started playing with a band Called The Florida Playboys. While playing with this band he got the habit of wearing sunglasses, designed by a man by the name of Billy Stickles. He had always played in those other bands for people but he wanted to do his own thing. After awhile Ray decided to leave the band and his life in Florida so that he could move to a larger city, although he thought Chicago and New York to big. He finally decided to have a friend look at a map for him to tell him the farthest city in the U.S. that was the farthest away from Florida. (Source found on page 3 of 13 printed from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Charles). The city that Ray ended up going to just so happened to be Seattle, the place where he would soon meet the 14 year old Mr. Quincy Jones. (Ray would soon befriend Quincy). Soon after getting to Seattle Ray would begin recording for the Down Beat label as the Maxin Trio with Mr. G.D. McKee along with a Mr. Milton Garrett. Ray achieved his first hit with “Confession Blues” in the year of 1949. The song soon made it all the way to number two on the R&B charts. Ray then joined in with Swing Time Records changing his own name to Ray Charles to avoid being confused with the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. Soon Ray had recorded two more R&B hits, “ Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand” made it to number five in 1951 than in 1952 recorded “Kissa Me Baby” which made it to number eight.