Performance anxiety - what actor wouldn't experience that uneasy feeling as they took on the role of an American icon?

So imagine actor Jamie Foxx's case of nerves as he embarked on the roller-coaster ride of portraying the legendary Ray Charles in Taylor Hackford's rocking, roiling biopic "Ray."

Performance artistry, however, is what Foxx delivers.

Foxx has the physical aspects of the late musical giant down cold. He hugs himself like the blind singer did. His smile beams like Charles' did. Foxx, an accomplished pianist, seems to discover the music embedded in the keyboard just like Charles - who made hits of "Hit the Road, Jack," "Georgia On My Mind," "Hallelujah I Love Her So," "UnchainMy Heart," to name a few.

But Foxx goes beyond uncanny mimicry in telling Charles' story. The film covers the artist's early years up to 1966, when Charles (who died in June) kicked his heroin habit.

Foxx taps into Charles' joy and anguish. Given Charles' early years, the joy seems nothing short of miraculous.

His anguish was more than earned.

Ray Charles Robinson was born in Georgia in 1930 and raised in Florida by his mother. The fame of boxer Sugar Ray Robinson KO'd the use of his real last name on marquees: He became Ray Charles.

When Charles was a child, he witnessed the drowning of his younger brother. A year after that tragedy, glaucoma began robbing Ray of his eyesight.

"Ray" flashes back to these difficult early years in a way that suggests the artist suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Newcomer Sharon Warren does a razor-sharp turn as Ray's mother, Aretha, the first queen of her son's soul-stirring music.Even though "Ray" concludes years before Charles died, the film bulges with information. It's easy to understand why Hackford, who toiled 15 years to get the film made, would have a hard time winnowing Charles' brilliant journey.What to lose? Charles' move to the Pacific Northwest where he met a very young Quincy Jones? No way. Charles' courting of future wife Della Bea Robinson? Nope. Ray succumbing to the brutal charm of heroin? Impossible. Ray's wheeling and dealing with the honchos at Atlantic Records? Again, no can do."Ray" runs 10 minutes too long. Yet if Hackford had added hours more footage of Foxx as Charles banging out the tunes, it would be hard to blame him.By no means does Foxx bear the sole burden of telling Charles' saga of poverty to mega-popularity. Kerry Washington does subtle work with the tough task of playing Della Bea, the knowing wife. Regina Taylor shines as singer Margie Hendricks, who considers herself Ray's on-the-road wife. Curtis Armstrong's turn as Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun deserves a shout-out, too; the scene of the little bald gnome helping Charles discover a style on "Mess Around" is hilarious and thrilling.Two scenes embody the force of Ray - the musical genius and the man - and crystalize the dual gifts of this deeply entertaining movie.At a nightclub, Ray Charles and his band improvise a song in order to honor a contract. In a movie full of knockout musical moments, the impromptu call and response of "What'd I Say" may be the best.If that ecstactic scene is about the joy of sound, the other scene celebrates the intimate relationship of silence and sound.In a flashback, the newly blind youngster begins piecing together his world.Aretha Robinson forces herself to let him fend for himself so he'll be able to make it on his own one day. She didn't live to see her son do that. But "Ray" quarantees that generations will know just how well he did.