Early+life

St.Augustine school for the Blind and Deaf ​ Ray Charles Robinson was born September 23,1930 in Albany, Georgia during the [|great deppression]. He was the son of Aretha Williams and Bailey Robinson. After Ray was born they moved to a poor black community in Jellyroll in Greenville, Florida. When he was a young child he showed intrest in machanical things. He began his music curioustiy when he was just 5 years old. When he was at Mr. Wiley Pit's Red Wing Cafe when he listen and whatched pit play boogie woogie on an old upright piano. When him and his brother were young his brother drowned at age 4 in a laundry tub which Ray witnessed.
 * __RAY CHARLES EARLY LIFE__**

Then Ray began schooling. In school he only learned classical music but he really wanted to learn jazz and blues. He bacame the schools premier musicain and he played the piano and sang for different events. He also sang and played for different apartments and used his own arrangments. At age 7 Ray Charles had sadly lost his sight. It was believed to be caused by glaucoma it started when he was five and he went fully blind at age 7.When he went blind his mother did not let him sit around and dwell on it. He also was welcomed into the state-supported school for the deaf and blind in St. Augustine, Fl. as a Charity student. He was upset to leave home but it was perfect for him and he learned hoe to read, write, and arrange music in braille. He learned to play many instruments because the piano class was full.

The [|most distressing] event in Ray’s life when his mother past in 1945.After his mothers death and his emergency trip home he never returned back to school. He then moved back to Jacksonville, Florida and at age 15 started to play with a few bands. Some people included Henry Washington, Joe Ellison, Charley Brantley, and even a Hillbilly outfit called The Florida Playboys. The Florida Playboys were who he learned to yodel from.Ray Charles knew he would not get vary far in Florida so he got a hold of a friend to relocate and start some wheres fresh. They relocated to Seattle, Washington where they were going to start a career and go somewheres for his future.Two years after his mother diead his father Bailey past away in 1947.