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Artist

Ray Charles

Blues

BluesCountryGospel

Ray Charles is a Blues and Country act. Their catalogue also touches Gospel, House and Jazz. Their sound grew out of Buck Owens, Cindy Walker, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Brothers Johnson and Eugene McDaniels. Those roots explain a lot about how Ray Charles arrange songs and choose their tones. They run in the same orbit as Otis Redding, Etta James, Fats Domino, Dinah Washington and Mahalia Jackson, sharing audiences, venues and reference points rather than a straight line of influence. Their influence carried into Stevie Wonder, Srbuk, Michael Bolton, Mario Biondi and Randy Newman, where the same ideas turn up rearranged for a later generation. Altogether the chart holds 204 connections around Ray Charles, reaching back through Buck Owens and forward to Stevie Wonder. Follow any of those threads to keep travelling the influence between bands and genres on Starverb.