Charles Henry Christian

Christian left Bonham as a toddler. His family moved to Oklahoma City in November 1918 after his father lost his eyesight, and the guitarist grew up there: busking with his father and brothers by 1921, theory lessons from Ralph Hamilton in 1928, a Gibson ES150 in 1937. John Hammond auditioned him on August 3, 1939. Benny Goodman hired him, and his pay went from $2.50 a night to $150 a week. A February 1940 X-ray showed tuberculosis scars on his lungs, and he kept performing. The marker stands in Bonham's Gates Hill Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Charles Henry Christian (July 29, 1916 - March 2, 1942) As a child Bonham native Charles (Charlie) Christian was exposed to the guitar artistry and soprano solos of his parents Clarence and Willie Mae Christian. Though taught in the guitar chord technique, he developed a unique single-string style that made his reputation and earned him a place in music great Benny Goodman's band in 1939. A jazz guitar prodigy, he played with Goodman, Count Basie, and at Carnegie Hall before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 25. Recorded - 1994

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 2.0 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 24 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 29 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.

More markers nearby

• Clark Memorial United Methodist Church — 0.4 mi
• Bonham Cotton Mill — 0.5 mi
• Bonham Daily Favorite — 0.7 mi
• Fannin County — 0.8 mi