Incidentally, the closest contact I ever personally had with Ray Charles was the summer of 1996. I was serving as a missionary in the city of Cahors, France, where they host an annual Blues Festival. Ray Charles was the featured musician for the 1996 festival. Unfortunately, all the events took place late in the evening, past the standard missionary curfew. So the best I could do was walk around main street at dusk and watch things getting set up for the evening's concert. But at least I can say I was in the same city as Ray Charles, once.