Ahead of Friday Night Is Music Night's celebration of Ray Charles, we re-visit Stuart Maconie's profile of the man known to millions as 'The Genius'.

Ahead of Friday Night Is Music Night's celebration of Ray Charles, we re-visit Stuart Maconie's profile of the man known to millions as "The Genius".

Ray Charles was a man of many talents - a towering musician, a free-lover and free thinker, a superb chess player, an infamously tough boss and fierce competitor. He had his critics - the church for one railed against Ray's gospel inspired soul, branding it suggestive and vulgar - but he remained unstoppable. During a career spanning five decades he remained in complete control over his life and music, producing an outstanding body of work across a dizzying array of genres.

This examination is a no holds barred account of the turbulent life and work of a musical icon, from his poverty stricken childhood in the Southern States of America, to the onset of blindness as a child, through his struggle against racial prejudice and drug addiction.

This series first aired on Radio 2 in the summer of 2000.