2 A Gift for Music

CHAPTER 2 A Gift for Music When Stevie was six years old, people in the Detroit area got to listen to a new radio station. On Sunday nights, the station played only the blues—a type of folk music created by black people in the southern part of the United States in the early 1900s. Lula often had the radio on when she was home. She liked the blues. Every week, Stevie was sure to tune in. By listening to the radio, Stevie became a big fan of musicians such as B. B. King, who became known as the "King of the Blues." Even though Stevie was blind, his siblings never considered him handicapped. Stevie went to a special school, the Fitzgerald Elementary School, but otherwise did most of the same things that his brothers did. "Some things he did better," Stevie's older brother Milton said.

Stevie liked to run around, climb trees, and even ride bikes. He would pedal while one of his brothers handled the steering.

Lula taught him not to feel sorry for himself because of his blindness, and she decided early on that she wasn't going to be overprotective of him. Lula did, however, hold out hope that Stevie might one day see. She took him to different doctors. She even tried faith healers— preachers who believed that God could perform a miracle through them. They laid their hands on Stevie and prayed that God would let him see. But none of it worked. Lula worried that Stevie would be unhappy because he was blind. But Stevie was happy. Finally, he told Lula one day, "Mama, you know maybe God doesn't mean for me to see. Maybe God meant for me to do something else." It was apparent that "something else" was certainly going to include music.

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Lula bought Stevie a cardboard drum set, and he quickly wore it out. A neighbor had a piano in her home and was delighted when Stevie came by to play. "Come over anytime," she told Stevie—and he did. When the woman moved away, she gave the piano to Stevie. Stevie was eight years old when he went with Lula and his brothers to an outdoor concert at a neighborhood park. He caught the attention of the leader of the band. Stevie told him he was a musician, too. So the bandleader led him onto the stage and sat him down at the drums. Stevie

wowed the crowd with his playing, and the bandleader gave him seventy-five cents. Stevie loved that he got paid to do something he really enjoyed! Stevie sang in the choir at Whitestone Baptist Church. Churchgoers loved to hear him sing gospel music at Sunday services. But one of the church leaders heard him singing rhythm-and- blues music in the neighborhood one day. Rhythm and blues, which was still relatively new in the late 1950s, was not considered appropriate music by traditional churches. So Stevie was asked to leave his church choir.