Charles brown musician biography worksheet

This worksheet asks students to analyze the behavior of a character from "A Charlie Brown.

His father was an itinerant cotton picker, and after his mother died when Charles was six months old, his maternal grandmother raised him. She had him playing church music on the piano at the age of four. When he was 10, she encouraged him to study classical piano, but Brown taught himself blues and boogie while she was at church meetings.

His grandmother didn't approve and worked hard to instill in him the importance of education. He graduated in with a degree in chemistry and worked for a year as a high school science teacher before securing a job as a junior chemist at the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. Brown left Arkansas because of racial discrimination and moved to California.

He hoped to be employed by the Western Research Lab, but when he got there, he discovered that the position he had applied for had already been filled. Soon after his arrival in California, he received a draft notice and had to return to Texas. In Houston he was granted a medical deferment because of asthma and decided to relocate to California, where there were better opportunities for employment.

Early in his life, Brown was deeply affected by the music of jazz great Art Tatum and his sophisticated approach that blended classical techniques and dynamics with blues and jazz. After moving to Los Angeles in , Brown won first prize at the Lincoln Theater's amateur-night concert and was invited to join The Three Blazers, led by the legendary Johnny Moore, who epitomized the cool, relaxed, West Coast blues piano trio style, often referred to as the "California fusion" sound.

The Three Blazers, with Moore on guitar, Eddie Williams on bass, and Brown on piano, at first played light, swinging instrumental versions of pop standards. Gradually, Brown worked more vocals into the format, giving the trio a more distinctive sound, featuring a melancholy blues quality. They made their first recording backing white pop star Frankie Laine.

Their recording of "Driftin' Blues," composed by Brown, was an immediate success. In the late s Brown left The Three Blazers and began his solo career.