Charlie Channel

I love music because it loves me. I was moved by music. My earliest memory was me crawling across linoleum, and pulling myself up on a chair and commotion and a woman saying, ' come here baby ... the baby took its first step ... come here quick (or words to that effect to my another female I later identify as my mother). I stumbled and fell. I deduce I was around 18 months old, at most. Around five years of age, By the time I was four, I heard music everywhere -- including the clink of milk bottles, the iceman yelling, dogs barking, the morning work whistle screaming me awake. And, music made me move, in church, on the street, and at our apartment in the projects of Oakland around 1948-1950. When I heard music on the street, it made me dance. See: https://www.jukeintheback.org/ about the rhythm and blues and, specifically around the withering big band era. During that transition time, my father took us (my family comprised of my mother, sister and me) to see Lionel Hampton in San Francisco. From the balcony's first row, I witnessed and was imprinted on the drumming of Gene Krupa. That was my stamp of approval! My father also took us to see T-bone Walker. He told T-bone, he dances! But, that's another story.