Ray Charles talks about jazz, the black and white divide in music and about blindness. 1993.

After interviewing Leonard Cohen I became an interviewer purely to talk with more of my heroes. Ray Charles was a hero of mine from the time when I was nine-years-old, visiting my grandfather in a nursing home, in Dublin, told to "sit over there and listen to the radio" and was truly electrified when I put on headphones and heard him sing Take These Chains From My Heart.  Roughly a decade later, I climbed up onto a tree to watch Ray sing and play in Central Park - I couldn't afford to go to the gig - and then bought no less than twenty-six of his albums before I cam back to Ireland. A black family, in Brooklyn, who had befriended me, bought me a Ray Charles album I had been forced to leave behind. In other words, his music was always central to my life. That might explain why, before this interview proper begins and I tell Ray about my experience of his song, No Use Crying, I get so emotional.  I loved the man. I love his music. And even though I got less than twenty minutes to talk with him, it was a godsend and I hope part of that comes across in this podcast.  But I do wish Ray hadn't kept calling me "Sir." Brownie McGee, a black man, when I met him, got it more right when he called me, a white guy with a black name, Joe Jackson,  "Boy"!