Piano turns rock and roll?!

I have now been given the task of writing about whatever I want to in this blog post. Given all of the things that we have learned this year in music appreciation, I am free to discuss any type of music that I want. There are two musicians in particular that have always sparked my interest. They both came at the beginning of the 21st century, and they are Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis. You might be asking yourself just how those two go together, but I am going to try and tell you how. ( I have to find out first) :) Ray Charles was a pioneeer in the genre of music called Soul during the 1950's. Jerry Lee Lewis was a rock and roll musician. The thing that these two men had the most in common was the piano. Ray Charles was completely blind and he was an amazing piano player. Ray Charles was called the "only true genius in show business" by Frank Sanatra. Something else that links these two men together in a way was the fact that people questioned their music and called it the "devil's music".

Ray Charles started going blind at the age of five, and was completely blind at the age of seven. He attended the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine from 1937 to 1945, where he developed his musical talent. He was only taught classical music in school, but he wanted to play the jazz and blues that he heard on the radio. Almost immediately after signing with Atlantic, Charles scored his first hit singles. "Mess Around" was an R&B hit in 1953. "It Should Have Been Me" and "Don't You Know" both made the charts in 1954, but "I Got a Woman" (composed with band mate Renald Richard) brought him to national prominence.