Ray Charles Robinson was born in Albany, Georgia on September 23, 1930.
He was born in Greenville, Florida, to laborer Bailey Robinson and laundress Aretha (or Reatha) Robinson (née Williams).
Aretha’s mother died when she was a child. Her father was unable to keep her. Bailey, a coworker of her father’s, took her in.
Aretha was informally adopted by the Robinson family—Bailey, his wife Mary Jane, and his mother—and took the surname, Robinson. Aretha, then 15, became pregnant by Bailey a few years later.
She left Greenville late in the summer of 1930 to be with family in Albany during the ensuing scandal.
She and the infant Charles returned to Greenville after the birth of their child, Ray Charles. Charles was raised by Aretha and Bailey’s wife, who had lost a son. The father abandoned the family, moved away from Greenville, and married another woman. Charles had a brother, George, by his first birthday. No one could remember who George’s father was later.
What was the cause of Ray Charles’s death?
Ray Charles died at the age of 73. American musical legend Ray Charles died Thursday at his Beverly Hills home of complications from liver disease.
