This last weekend, my wife and I went to Albany, Georgia for a family reunion celebrating my Grandmother’s 98th Birthday.
Albany
is a small town, pretty much seems like Anytown, USA located out in the middle of nowhere.
Not
a lot to see there, but there is the Ray Charles Plaza which features a very
cool statue of the legendary musician. As my Grandmother told me when I was a
kid, Charles was born in Albany on September 23, 1930, and although his
family moved from there to Greenville, Florida when he was still a baby, it’s one of the
town’s claims to fame.
On
our way out of town on Sunday we stopped by the Plaza, located on the banks of the Flint River in downtown Albany,
to check it out. Ray Charles' music, mostly live recordings it sounded like, coming from a bunch of small speakers placed
around the statue greets you when you enter the small park.
There
are giant piano keys and treble clefts carved in the concrete, and the statue
itself, a life-sized recreation of the “Genius of Soul” singing while playing his
baby grand piano captures the iconic image of the man quite nicely.
Here's a few shots to show you what I mean:
And here's one of the piano key walkways:
All in all, a pretty cool tourist attraction.
More later...
