Ray Charles is an American singer, composer, arranger and pianist.A major figure in Afro-American music, he covered a wide range of musical genres in a career spanning more than fifty years: jazz, gospel, blues, country and rhythm & blues. He is also frequently considered one of the pioneers of soul music, along with Sam Cooke and Solomon Burke.Stricken by total blindness at the age of seven, Ray Charles received classical musical training in his youth. He then turned to the blues, achieving success in the early 1960s with songs such as Georgia on My Mind and Hit the Road Jack. He went on to earn the nickname "Genius".Ray Charles sold tens of millions of albums and had a profound influence on contemporary 20th-century music, including pop, rock, rap and R&B.