THE MAN WHO GOT BANNED AND THEN BECAME THE STATE SONG
In November 1961, Ray Charles was booked to play the Bell Auditorium in Augusta, Georgia. The show was sold out. The promoters were happy. Then Ray Charles arrived and found out the seating was segregated.
Black audience members in the balcony. White audience members on the floor.
He refused to play.
Not after a negotiation. Not after a conversation with his manager. He looked at the setup, understood what it meant, and said no. The show was cancelled on the spot. Ray Charles walked out.
The state of Georgia responded by banning him. He was barred from performing there for a period that would stretch years. He lost the show fee. He took the reputational hit in a region that represented a significant part of his audience. He did it anyway.
This was 1961. Ray Charles was thirty one years old. Georgia on My Mind — his version of it, the one that had just won him a Grammy and turned Hoagy Carmichael’s old ballad into something eternal — had come out the year before. He was at the height of his commercial power. He had everything to lose by making a stand in the South.
He made it anyway.
Eighteen years later, in 1979, the Georgia State Legislature passed a resolution officially apologizing to Ray Charles for the 1961 incident. They then voted to make his recording of Georgia on My Mind the official state song.
The same state that banned him now plays his voice at every official function. His name is on buildings there. School children in Georgia learn his story.
I do not know what Ray Charles thought of any of this. He never said much about it publicly. But there is something in the timeline that feels important: he did not do what he did in 1961 because he knew how it would look in 1979. He did it because it was the only thing he was willing to do in 1961.
That is the whole story. That is all there is.
WHAT TO LISTEN TO
The Genius of Ray Charles (1959). The full album version of Georgia on My Mind is on here. Listen to it knowing what happened two years after it was recorded and see if it sounds the same.
THE MUSIC
If the history is what brings you here, the music is what keeps you here.
Stream or buy my latest at sidkingsley.com
Until next time.
Sid