The first time I met Ray Charles, he was preparing a session with Ahmet [Ertegun] at the Atlantic studio. It was a rehearsal exercise: Ahmet was teaching him the song "Mess Around," which Ahmet wrote. But Ray was also, amazingly, singing these country songs like "Missouri Waltz," then dashing off the most highly evolved bebop piano you'd ever heard.

The definitive Ray Charles session for Atlantic was in Atlanta in 1954, the first with his own band. Before that, we had recorded in a standard studio manner. He came in, we went over songs, we had the arranger — usually Jesse Stone — and we'd record him with sidemen. These were not bad records, such as "Sinner's Prayer." But this time, it was as though he had sprung full-blown, like Minerva from Jupiter's head. He called Ahmet and me to Atlanta. We had no idea what to expect. He was staying at the Peacock hotel. Across the street was the Royal Peacock nightclub. He ran down the stairs from the hotel, across the alley, up to this mezzanine — when Ray knew his territory, we could barely keep up with him — and there was this seven-piece band, with instruments ready: four horns, three rhythm players, no guitar. And they launched into "I've Got a Woman." Ray had finally found his own voice in this band. It's ironic that Ray Charles, who is surely one of the precursors of rock and roll, which is defined by the guitar, created this sound without one. A guitar would have gotten in the way of those spaces, where the horns came in.

We did the session at WGST, the campus radio station at Georgia Tech. He did "I've Got a Woman," "Come Back Baby," "Greenbacks" and one other song. There was this elderly engineer who didn't know a damn thing about what he was supposed to do. It was three hours before we could get the sound right in the studio. Then we had to stop every hour so they could broadcast the news — the control room was the newsroom. But out of this, we got those songs, the definitive beginnings of the Ray Charles.

The last time I spoke to him was just before he got sick. We had a wonderful conversation. It was joyous. I never tried to impose a lot of phone calls on him. We talked once every few years. But I was very happy this time when he said, "Pardner" — he always called me that — "those were my best years, with you and Ahmet." But when people say, "You and Ahmet produced Ray Charles," put big quotation marks around produced. We were attendants at a happening. We learned from Ray Charles. My dear friend [writer] Stanley Booth once remarked, "When Ahmet and Jerry got ready to record Ray Charles, they went to the studio and turned the lights on. Ray didn't need them."

Billy Joel

In the mid-Eighties, I got a call from Quincy Jones saying, "Ray Charles would love to do a song with you." This is when I was in a prolific period and much more arrogant and I actually thought I could write. When it came time to write the song, I said to myself, "What do Ray Charles and I have in common? He's black, he's blind, he's from Florida, he's got soul. I'm this little white schmuck from Long Island who writes pop songs. But we both play the piano." So I sat down at Burt Bacharach's restaurant here in New York, and I wrote a song called "Baby Grand." Ray loved it, and we recorded it together.

When he walked into that session, it was like the Washington Monument just walked in the room. He looked exactly like Ray Charles was supposed to look: He had the glasses, the hair and the smile. He was tough, though. If the drummer dropped the beat, he could be scary as crap. You didn't want to make a mistake around Ray Charles, because you could feel this glare coming from somewhere behind those glasses. He was very generous with me. I was awkward and shy, singing with my idol. But we met on common ground as piano players. I played the basics, and he would riff on top of my chords. I ain't gonna try to outriff Ray!

Steve Winwood is who brought me to Ray Charles. When Winwood was with the Spencer Davis Group, I was playing in these garage bands, and I thought he had the greatest voice — this skinny little English kid singing like Ray Charles. The singer of Procol Harum sounded like Ray Charles. When Rod Stewart was singing with the Jeff Beck Group, he was trying to sound like Ray Charles. Even Robert Plant wanted to sound like Ray Charles. There were so many people copping on Ray, and I'll be the first to admit I was trying to sing like Ray Charles, too.

The last time I saw Ray, he inducted me into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. I was awed. It was like God himself came down and said, "OK, you're in."

This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. I don't know if Ray was the architect of rock & roll, but he was certainly the first guy to do a lot of things. He was not a snob about style. Who the hell ever put so many styles together and made it work? He was a true American original.

Keith Richards

The first thing I ever heard by Ray Charles was "What'd I Say." The next thing was the jazz album that had David "Fathead" Newman [Genius + Soul = Jazz]. And then "Hit the Road Jack." The man had range. He wasn't in a bag. He had his own bag. I loved the way he could effortlessly zoom about in all of these things. It was all music to Ray. He was the first true crossover artist. I remember putting off a few of my so-called hipper friends when the Jazz album came out. They said, "Man, he's selling out." But Ray was rock & roll. He was rhythm & blues. He was jazz. He was country. He had such reach — and far-reaching effect.

With the Rolling Stones being a guitar band primarily, Ray's influence on us was more insidious. For Mick, for anyone singing blues or rhythm & blues, you learned from Ray. If you listened to a lot of Ray, as we did, it rubbed off. Charlie loved the Ray Charles band, especially the drummers. And Ian Stewart would always sit around doodling at the piano on Ray's songs and licks. The whole session, every time we would stop a take, there would be Stu, trying to get one of Ray's piano licks down. In fact, one of my proud piano moments was that I had learned one of Ray's really sweet blues licks and taught it to Ian Stewart. It was the only time I ever taught him anything on piano.

I met Ray once or twice — "How ya doing?" "Nice to meet ya." Although we knew each other, we just didn't have time to hook up. But I knew a lot of his band. I first saw Ray live in the Sixties, in the States when we first came over. I'm not sure where it was. I know it wasn't any grand joint — just some place with a sign, "Ray Charles, Now Appearing." It was pretty much an all-black crowd; some of the guys in this group the Vibrations took me there. It must have been on a Southern swing, because I had to pee in the other bathroom, the one with the sign that said "White."

And when the Stones were on the road in the Seventies, a lot of the time we'd be playing the same town either just before Ray or just after. Ray's band was pretty wild — it was thirty pieces of black dynamite. You'd hear stories: They would be in the bar, the police coming. And when we'd get to the airport the next day, there would always be some poor guy with his drum kit or trombone, standing on the runway because he was late and missed the plane. Ray ran a tight ship.