Happy Birthday, Ray Charles
Submitted by Eye Didn’t Know Blog
Did you know? Today is the anniversary of the birth of Ray Charles! (Sept. 23, 1930-June 10, 2004) This musical legend lost his vision at around age 5. Unfortunately, sources disagree on the cause of his blindness, and according to a 60-Minutes interview, Charles himself was not sure of the cause. Most sources say he had congenital glaucoma. This is a disease where the drainage system of the eye does not work properly, leading to high eye pressure, optic nerve damage and vision loss. Other sources say he may have had trachoma, which is an infection spread by flies, which can lead to severe scarring across the cornea, the clear window on the front of the eye.
Did you also know? Charles was not discouraged by his blindness. In his 60-Minutes interview, when asked, he states: “Why? About what? When you are blind, I think you probably only lose maybe 1/99th of what life is all about…” In the same interview, producer Quincy Jones recounts:
The only time where he ever appeared to have any kind of handicap was when a beautiful woman was in the room, then he started walking into walls and so forth. …‘Can I help you Mr. Charles?’ Jones says the sympathetic women would say. …He’d get real blind, you know, when the pretty girls were around.”
Jones further states that Charles sound was “darkness converted into light.” How appropriate!
