He and Ray recorded a few songs together in the 1980's, 'Seven Spanish Angels' being a personal favouite.

Anyway, there was some footage of Ray and Willie on stage together, and Willie tells the audience "After last nights gig we went back to Ray's room and he and I played chess. If you want to know who won, well Ray did. But next time we're going to turn the lights on".

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Film/...

Born in Albany Georgia, later moved to Greenville, Florida. In 1936 he contracted glaucoma and eventually left him blind for life.

It was while he was attending St. Augustine's School for the Deaf and Blind that Ray excelled a variety of musical instruments, yes, piano included.

Ray did release a number of records in the early years, but the big one came in 1952 when he signed on with Atlatic Records.

Ray was known to be a chess fan and often played against fellow band members, friends, and even at times interviewers. (See the above game.)

One unique thing about Ray's chess board was that each square has the same color, but the 'dark' squares were slightly elevated and the 'light' squares were slightly lowered. Each square also had a holes on the bottom to fit the pieces into, much like a traveling chess set of the old days.

The dark pieces' top had sharper edges in comparison to the whites.

<chessgames.com> Here is the profile for our beloved Ray Charles written by Wanna Be!