Yesterday I met Ray Charles in Albany, Georgia. He was in a good mood. I was, too. I waved at him. He didn’t wave back.

I met him when I was walking on Front Street. I was bundled in my jacket, it was cold outside, and I heard music in the distance, reverberating across the smooth surface of the Flint River.

I followed the music until I found him.

Ray’s life-sized bronze statue stands downtown. He is depicted behind a baby grand, perpetually leaning his right shoulder into the downbeat. He wears a bowtie and Ray-Ban Wayfarer shades.

The all-weather sound system played Ray’s “The Spirit of Christmas” while a waterfall spilled beneath him.

I was close enough to touch the hem of his tuxedo.

I sat on a “piano-key” bench and listened. The next song was “Oh What a Beautiful Morning.” The Count Basie Orchestra was kicking harder than a government mule, and Brother Ray never sounded so good.

I am a lifelong Ray Charles fanatic. When I was six years old,

my father gave me the album “Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music” and I listened to Ray sing “You Win Again” until the record warped from overuse.

At which point my father bought a replacement album. I wore that one out, too.

I learned to play piano at age nine when my old man bought a cheap spinet from the classified section of the newspaper. For my birthday he placed the waterlogged piano in our basement, next to the water heater. My mother made a cake with chocolate piano keys on it.

Daddy refused to pay for lessons because my father was a hick whose philosophy was, if the kid is meant to play the piano, he will. I was potty trained under the same system.

So I listened to Ray Charles records. The first piano tune I ever learned was “Hit the Road Jack.” The…