Ray Charles and drugs

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Famously, a junkie at one point,
more famously, blind from an early age.

How did that work? Did he not have someone to help? "Hey pass me that smack!" "OK ray, here you are." How did he get into that habit? Bad people around? How did he continue? no-one to say "no, I'm hiding that" or was he really good at smelling it out?

I realise this is less than tasteful, but I am being serious underneath it.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 12:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah that's some serious enabling going on, helping a blind guy shoot heroin.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 12:51 (twenty-one years ago)

The kind of money he was making, I bet there was a long list of willing enablers.

― Huck, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 14:07 (twenty-one years ago)

For a second I thought you said 'embalmers'

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 14:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, when you're out of smack and feeling experimental, embalming fluid might do the trick...

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to think abt Ray's habit during those old Pepsi ads. Accomplice finally hits the mainline: "You got the right one, baby!"

― briania (briania), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 14:26 (twenty-one years ago)

did he shoot or snort?

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know, but I'd imagine a blind guy, with the kind of determination only a junkie can muster, could figure out how to shoot himself up.

― Huck, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

shot up. guys in the band would take care of the particulars. his first album done in the wake of that addiction--Crying Time--is incredible. Spent the rest of his life slowly killing himself with booze. read Michael Lydon's tremendous bio 'Ray Charles : Man & Music.'

― rumple, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

once he got off dope Ray always said he felt exactly the same as when he was on. only differnce was he didn't have to shoot up every day. a macho boast perhaps, but it also made me wonder if blindness made him experience or "percieve" the heroin high differently than a sighted user would.

― lbs, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

What year did he finally quit, btw?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964

― Joseph McCombs, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 16:54 (twenty-one years ago)

"Ray Charles and drugs"

I like both.

― Jack Stammer, Thursday, 29 July 2004 00:17 (twenty-one years ago)

supposedly, post heroin, his beverage of choice was a mixture of coffee, gin, and lots of sugar.

Sounds awful doesn't it?

― shookout (shookout), Thursday, 29 July 2004 00:28 (twenty-one years ago)

will they explain the logistics of it all in 'Ray' starring Jamie Foxx? I saw the preview before Bourne Supremacy.

― keith m (keithmcl), Thursday, 29 July 2004 00:57 (twenty-one years ago)

i made a joke about this on another thread and was accused of racism!

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 29 July 2004 02:30 (twenty-one years ago)

was that the one about the Rayettes helping him shoot up? I remember that...

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Thursday, 29 July 2004 02:36 (twenty-one years ago)

...right here:
Ray Charles, RIP

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Thursday, 29 July 2004 02:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Raelettes, then:
surely one of the raelettes helped out!
-- amateur!st (amateur!s...), June 10th, 2004.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
will he be buried with the raelettes, ancient egyptian style?
Allow me me to speak for almost every african american music fan and critic smart enough not to pay attention to this site:

Go straightr to hwll, you bougie smart alect bastard.
-- brotherman (bobb...), June 10th, 2004 5:58 PM.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Thursday, 29 July 2004 02:41 (twenty-one years ago)

There's also the old joke, dating back to the '60:

If you want to be a Raelette, you have to let Ray.

― shookout (shookout), Thursday, 29 July 2004 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Margie Hendricks. And she "lette" Ray, as the joke goes

― rumple, Thursday, 29 July 2004 03:13 (twenty-one years ago)

wiw, talking about timing

― rumple, Thursday, 29 July 2004 03:13 (twenty-one years ago)

It could have been worse, they could have been 'raelings'

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 29 July 2004 06:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Imagine this ad, a junkie having his gangrenous left arm cut off by a surgical saw 'Requiem for a Dream' style, then sympathetic voice goes "You got the right one baby!"

― dave q, Thursday, 29 July 2004 07:16 (twenty-one years ago)

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