I don’t want to push a meme too hard (Llama alert) but I really do think that it is worth people registering at the Telegraph as they spend a lot of time and effort on their obituary pages. They’re so proud of them that they have released a series of books of collected ones. Do go and have a look at this one of Ray Charles as I think it’s just the most marvellous summation of a life. Snippets:

The new style was dubbed “soul” and went on to revitalise black music. Countless other singers, ranging from Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin to the Beatles and Van Morrison, would cite Ray Charles as an influence; even Frank Sinatra described him as “the only genius in our business”.

Capable of memorising 2,000 bars of music at a time, he also taught himself to play and write for every bass and wind instrument in the orchestra. When he was 15, his mother died. “Times and me got leaner,” Charles later recalled, with characteristic lack of self-pity, “but anything beats getting a cane and a cup and picking out a street corner.”

But Charles was most comfortable on stage and toured in style, usually backed by a large band and the four Raeletts. On one occasion, when the quartet failed to make it to the studio, Charles dubbed in all four parts himself, in perfect falsetto.

He finally renounced his 17-year heroin habit in 1965. He refused, however, to play the role of the repentant junkie, and the following year released Let’s Get Stoned. “I did drugs because it was my pleasure,” he said later.

A self-confessed ladies’ man (he had 12 children with several different women) Charles also admitted that he had enjoyed holding casting couch auditions for the Raeletts. But other than music, his abiding passion was chess, which he took up while recovering from his addiction. He also enjoyed murder mysteries – notably Agatha Christie – in Braille.
Charles never stopped working, and was still touring two years ago. “For me music is like breathing,” he said, “and you don’t retire from breathing.” He devoted much of his time and money to charities for the deaf. “Hearing,” he explained, “is the most important thing in the world. If I lost my hearing it would be like being dead as far as I’m concerned.”

How about that eh? A blind man makes fun of his blindness (remember the Blues Brothers?) and then raises money for the deaf. Leave the music aside for a moment, the unrepentant philandering junkie bit can also be ignored, we need more people like that, those who use their talents for the benefit of those less fortunate.