Saturday, July 18, was a great day to celebrate Greenville’s most famous son. In addition to the Fresh Farmer’s Market taking place in Haffye Hays Park, the Town of Greenville unveiled a piano mural dedicated to Ray Charles. In April of this year, Greenville Mayor Ryan Kornegay approached Devonte King, an artist from Quincy, Fla., with the idea of painting a mural on a piano that had been donated to the Town of Greenville.
Ray Charles Robinson, the musical icon, was actually born in Albany, Ga., in 1930. However, he spent his formative years in Greenville, where he started to play the piano at the age of five. As a child, he lost his eyesight at an early age. Yet, he did not allow that to hold him back as stories of him riding his bicycle up and down the streets of Greenville still abound. After losing his sight, he attended school at the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, where he learned to write music in Braille as well as learning to play the saxophone, clarinet, trumpet and organ; in addition to honing his piano skills. His father died when he was 10 and his mother passed away five years later. He left school and began working in dance bands around the state. At that time, he dropped his last name, reportedly in order to avoid confusion with the famous boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. According to the Ray Charles Foundation, in 1947, with $600 in his pocket, he moved to Seattle, Wash., and began work as a “Nat ‘King’ Cole-style crooner.”