When and where did the story of Soul music begin? How did Ray Charles learn how to read music?

Soon after his brother's death, Charles gradually began to lose his sight. He was blind by the age of 7, and his mother sent him to a state-sponsored school, the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, Florida — where he learned to read, write and arrange music in Braille.

At the age of 7 when his father took him to see a show and he fell in love with jazz ;)