Ray Charles Childhood Home, House museum in Greenville, United States.
Ray Charles Childhood Home is a four-room Florida Cracker-style wooden house of about 80 m² at 443 Ray Charles Avenue in Greenville, Florida. It has a chimney and a wood stove, and when Ray Charles lived there it had no electricity or plumbing and drew water from a well. The house is marked by Florida Historical Marker F-651.
Aretha Williams gave birth to twins Ray and George in Albany, Georgia, on 23 September 1930, then returned to this four-room Greenville house with her mother-in-law Margaret Robinson. Ray lost his sight completely at seven and was a boarder at the St. Augustine school for deaf and blind children from 1937 to 1945, leaving after his mother's death when he was 14. Greenville bought the derelict house in 2006 and opened it as a museum on 23 September 2009, his 79th birthday.
Ray Charles was born in Albany, Georgia, on 23 September 1930, and his mother Aretha Williams soon brought him back to this house in Greenville, her hometown, where he grew up. He began learning stride piano at the age of five. His 1960 recording of Georgia on My Mind, which sold over a million copies, became Georgia's official state song after he performed it before the Georgia General Assembly on 24 April 1979.
The house stands at 443 Ray Charles Avenue, the street renamed in his honour when the museum opened on 23 September 2009, his 79th birthday. The Florida Historical Marker F-651 is mounted on the building, so the exterior and plaque can be seen without booking. Greenville is a small town of about 800 residents in northern Florida.
The city bought the derelict house in 2006 to save it from demolition, restored it in 2008 with a grant from Florida's historic preservation office, and opened it as a museum on 23 September 2009, Ray Charles's 79th birthday. The avenue in front was renamed in his honour.
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