Ray Charles, who against unthinkable odds created one of the great musical legacies of the 20th century, died Thursday at his Beverly Hills, Calif., home. He was 73.

Charles had suffered from acute liver disease for the past year, said his spokesman, Jerry Digney. Charles was surrounded by family and friends when he died at 11:35 a.m. PDT (1:35 a.m. Lawrence time).

He had a dozen No. 1 hits, won 12 Grammy Awards and sang for a half dozen presidents. His recording studio in Los Angeles was designated a historic landmark in April.

Charles’ personal story was as inspirational as his music. Born to a poor family in Albany, Ga., in 1930, he went blind at 7 and was orphaned at 15.

“Picture an African-American child in the 1930s South,” said Jonathan Schwartz, program director of the popular standards channel Frank’s Place on FM radio. “He is blind and alone. Think of what this man did. Out of this, he made Ray Charles.”

“Man, did he uplift souls,” said Dion DiMucci, who played with Charles at Harlem’s Apollo Theater in the late ’50s. “Guys like me would look at him and say, ‘Oh, so that’s how it’s done.”‘

Frank Sinatra called Charles “the only genius in our business.”

Charles always rejected the term but equally admired Sinatra, who died in 1998.

Last month, Charles and Willie Nelson, who had a No. 1 country hit together in 1984 with “Seven Spanish Angels,” recorded Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year.”

Rocker Dion noted that Charles had “some struggles,” including a 20-year heroin addiction he kicked in 1965. For years, he could not be licensed to play New York cabarets because of his drug convictions.

Legendary singer Ray Charles performs at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem in this June 2003 file photo . Charles died Thursday at age 73.

He was also a shrewd businessman and perfectionist, who could be moody and abrupt. If he didn’t like the way his singers did choruses, he might overdub all the voices himself.

But Ruth Brown, whom Charles accompanied on his first tour in the late 1940s, said Thursday that he had a great sense of humor.

“I talked to him a few months ago,” Brown said. “He told me they were making a movie about his life and asked who should play me. I said, ‘Halle Berry.’ He said, ‘Ruth, I ain’t that blind.”‘

Charles began his professional career in the style of Nat King Cole, but soon developed his own sound. Eventually, he would incorporate every type of American music, from gospel and blues to pop, country and jazz.

His first No. 1 hit, “I’ve Got a Woman,” in 1955, was based on the gospel song “It Must Be Jesus” by the Southern Tones, said Anthony Heilbut, author of the book “The Gospel Sound.”

Charles hit No. 1 again in 1956 with the bluesy “Drown in My Own Tears,” then in 1959 with the exuberant dance workout “What’d I Say.”

His next two No. 1 hits were the funky “Hit the Road Jack” and “Unchain My Heart” in 1961, then a year later he had his biggest hit with a country song, Don Gibson’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”

Tying all his styles together was his voice, rough as a gravel road and uniquely expressive.

“He wasn’t one kind of singer,” Dion said. “He was Ray Charles.”

“If he heard a great sound,” said Heilbut, “he adapted it.”

Born Ray Charles Robinson, he attended the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind in Georgia, where he learned to read and write music in Braille and play a dozen instruments.

He also noticed the facilities were racially segregated (“in a place where no one could see”) and he would later become friends with civil-rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr.

But Charles professed a deep faith in America and in 1972 he recorded what many consider the definitive version of “America the Beautiful,” a gospel-drenched rendition of the song he thought should be the National Anthem.

Divorced since 1952 but with a lifelong fondness for women, Charles is survived by 12 children.

Memorial services will be held next week in Los Angeles.