– Ed
Ray Charles
(1930-2004) Composer, Musician
The young Ray began to lose his sight from the age of five and went completely blind at the age of seven. His blindness was probably due to glaucoma, which went undetected and untreated, no doubt due to the poverty in which he grew up, where medical treatment was unavailable. From 1937 he went to an institution for the deaf and blind in Sainte-Augustine, Florida. But his disability did not prevent him from learning to ride a bicycle or playing cards. Ray Charles used all his senses; he assessed distances using his hearing and learned to develop his memory. He always refused to use a guide dog or a white cane, although he did need an assistant when on tour. Some of his fans nicknamed him “the blind architect of jazz and blues”. He imposed his own style in the fifties, with songs whose lyrics combined the profane with gospel sound. He was the equal of other great black voices – Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Bessie Smith – and music hall stars such as Sinatra or Stevie Wonder. He used to say, with his habitual humour “I’m blind, but there’s always someone worse off than yourself, I could have been black!”
Last concert of Ray Charles, in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts during the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal in 2003.
Photo by Victor Diaz Lamich. | Date: 15 july 2003 | Source: Wikipedia
Stevie Wonder
(1950-) Composer, Musician
Stevie Wonder was born prematurely and an excess of oxygen in the incubator left him blind within just a few hours. Fearing for his safety his mother only very rarely let him out, so Stevie amused himself by listening to the radio. He quickly acquired some good music basics and soon began singing in the church choir. He taught himself to play the harmonica and drums at the age of five and from then on took piano lessons. He was signed by the Motown label and brought his first record out at the age of 12, a few months before a second album dedicated to his idol Ray Charles, “Tribute to Uncle Ray”. Stevie Wonder introduced the use of synthesisers in pop music and his compositions are often imprinted with great optimism. Blind, but with a great deal of humour, Stevie Wonder wrote the song “Don’t Drive Drunk” for the MAAD charity (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).
Salvador (BA) – Singer Stevie Wonder speaks at the opening of the 2nd Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora in Salvador.
Date: 12/07/2006 | Source : Wikipedia
José Feliciano
(1945-) Composer, Musician
José Feliciano was born in Porto Rico, and has been blind from birth due to congenital glaucoma. He taught himself music by listening in his room, for up to 14 hours a day, to rock music albums from the fifties, as well as classical guitarists such as Andrés Segovia or jazzmen like Wes Montgomery. His first tour in Great Britain had to be cancelled because the authorities refused entry to his guide dog, fearing that it might be carrying rabies.
Feliciano later wrote a song entitled “No dogs allowed”, in reference to this first visit to London. As well as his musical talents, Feliciano is known for his great sense of humour. Like Ray Charles he has no hesitation in joking about people’s reactions to his blindness.
Date: July 20, 2007 | Author: DJ Buck | Source: Wikipedia
Andrea Bocelli
(1958-) Singer
Bocelli was born with congenital glaucoma, aggravated by chronic diabetes. He suffered a great deal with his eyes. He underwent his first operation at the age of six months, and twenty-six other operations followed. But doctors were unable to give Andrea’s family any hope; he would go blind. He lost his vision completely in 1970 after an accident when he was twelve. He was studying in Reggio de Calabre at the time and was playing football. The blind children were using balls with metal pieces on their surface, to help them locate them. A ball hit Bocelli on the head and a piece of metal went into his eyes, precipitating his blindness. Andrea’s mother says that she didn’t know how to react with her son. She asked a blind boy for some advice and he recommended keeping Andrea’s visual memory alive, colours, shapes etc. everything her son could no longer see. During his teenage years he won numerous singing competitions but was careful to take a law degree at Pisa University, whilst continuing to sing in the musical bars of the city, his repertoire running from Charles Aznavour to Frank Sinatra. The real turning point in his life as a musician came when he met the legendary tenor Franco Corelli, who agreed to take him on as a pupil, nicknaming him “the blind angel”. In 1994 Luciano Pavarotti personally invited Andrea Bocelli to the Pavarotti Festival in Modena, where he sang alongside the Maestro. Since then although he has not succeeded as an opera singer he has appeared alongside international stars on the most prestigious world stages.
Source: Wikipedia
Conclusion
As we have seen, visually impaired musicians, either self-taught or through the intermediary of dedicated structures, have been able to develop their natural gifts for playing an instrument. Although the causes of blindness at birth, or during early childhood, have been identified and although today some of these can be avoided through preventive action, there still remains a great deal of work to be done by research laboratories to ensure that, in the near future, risk factors leading to a visual disability are controlled in order to ensure that the consequences are diminished as far as possible.