Ray Charles Robinson Jr.: Son of Ray Charles

Full name	Ray Charles Robinson Jr.
Known as	Ray Jr.
Profession	Independent film producer, author
Known for	Co-producing the 2004 film Ray; memoir You Don’t Know Me: Reflections of My Father, Ray Charles
Parents	Ray Charles, Della Beatrice Howard Robinson
Siblings	David Robinson, Robert Robinson

Ray Charles Robinson Jr. is the eldest son of the legendary musician Ray Charles and Della Beatrice Howard Robinson. He has built a professional identity as an independent film producer and published author, with his most recognized work centered on preserving and reflecting on his father’s life and legacy.

Table of Contents

Who Is Ray Charles Robinson Jr.?

Known in some circles as Ray Jr., he is publicly recognized both for his family name and for the professional work he has produced in his own right. While his father remains one of the most iconic figures in American music history, Ray Jr. has contributed meaningfully to how that story has been told — through film production and, most personally, through his own memoir.

His career is focused and specific rather than wide-ranging, but the credits he holds are documented and substantial. As an independent film producer, he has worked on projects directly connected to his father’s life, and he has spoken publicly about what it meant to grow up in that household.

His Work on the 2004 Film Ray and Ray Charles: 50 Years of Music

Ray Charles Robinson Jr.’s most prominent professional credits are in film and television production. He served as a co-producer on the 2004 biographical film Ray, the Jamie Foxx-led biopic that won widespread critical acclaim and brought renewed public attention to Ray Charles’s life story. His involvement placed him at the center of one of the most celebrated music biopics of that decade.

He also served as co-executive producer on the television special Ray Charles: 50 Years of Music, a project celebrating his father’s remarkable career. Both credits reflect a consistent focus: using his position and knowledge of his father’s life to help shape how that story is presented to audiences.

Public bios from his publisher and entertainment sources consistently describe him as an independent film producer, though his filmography beyond these Ray Charles-related projects is not extensively documented in public records.

You Don’t Know Me — His Memoir About Ray Charles and Family Life

In 2010, Ray Charles Robinson Jr. published You Don’t Know Me: Reflections of My Father, Ray Charles, co-written with Mary Jane Ross. The book is the most personal and revealing account he has offered of his upbringing and his relationship with his father.

The memoir covers his father’s career and his well-documented struggles with addiction, but it also turns the lens on the family dynamics that surrounded Ray Charles’s public life. A notable thread throughout the book is the role played by Della Beatrice Howard Robinson, Ray Jr.’s mother, who held the household together during years that were often turbulent. Media coverage of the memoir highlighted this focus on Della Robinson as one of the book’s more distinctive contributions — offering readers a perspective on a woman who was central to the family but rarely discussed in accounts of Ray Charles’s life.

Ray Charles Robinson Jr. and His Memoir About Ray Charles

The memoir was covered by outlets including TheGrio and Atlanta Magazine, both of which framed it as a candid, firsthand account rather than a standard celebrity biography. Ray Jr. spoke in interviews about the complexity of growing up as the son of someone so famous and so personally complicated, and the book reflects that honesty.

For readers and researchers interested in this period of Ray Charles’s life and the people closest to him, the memoir remains the most direct source of Ray Jr.’s own voice and perspective. Those exploring family legacy, biography, and personal storytelling may find resources on First Business Mag relevant to understanding how individuals build identities connected to — but distinct from — famous family names.

Ray Charles Robinson Jr.’s Family

Ray Charles Robinson Jr. is the eldest of three sons born to Ray Charles and Della Beatrice Howard Robinson. His brothers are David Robinson and Robert Robinson. Della Robinson was Ray Charles’s first and only wife, and the three sons she raised with him form a distinct branch of what was a large extended family.

As the eldest, Ray Jr. held a particular vantage point within the household — one that shapes the memoir he eventually wrote. His account draws on years of proximity to both his father’s public career and the private realities of family life that audiences never saw.

Ray Charles had twelve children in total, born to different mothers over the course of his life, but Ray Jr., David, and Robert are the sons of Della, the woman who was legally his wife and who Ray Jr. credits in his memoir as a steadying presence throughout an often difficult family history.

Ray Charles Robinson Jr.’s story is ultimately one of a son working through his father’s complicated legacy — preserving it through film, questioning and contextualizing it through memoir, and honoring the mother who stood at the center of it all.