CHICAGO — When Clarence McBounds was a baby, he always was banging pots and pans with forks and spoons.
His mother Demetra Knowles' solution to his constant pounding: getting her son a five-piece drum set.
McBounds, now 17, has been a drummer ever since, recalling his first memories of playing as a 2-year-old at Tried Stone Baptist Church in Beverly and in the living room of the family's Roseland residence.
For the past five weeks, he's participated in the elite Berklee Summer Performance program at the Massachusetts-based music school. On Saturday, the Wendell Phillips Academy rising senior and current Chatham resident auditioned for a scholarship at the school. He found out Wednesday night he earned a $40,000 scholarship to the school — $10,000 a year for four years — although he hasn't decided whether to officially attend Berklee.
"Basically, drumming is my life and passion," said McBounds, who goes by the stage name CJ Knowles and has already performed with Grammy Award-winner Sugar Blue at various clubs in Chicago. "Drumming has always been there."
McBounds said drumming also is a way to honor his father, James Knowles, who died in April 2014 at age 47 of head and neck cancer. James Knowles was a prolific drummer who built his own sets — giving most of them away when he knew the cancer was terminal. That includes the one McBounds currently uses — a 15-piece drum kit made of poplar and birch wood with several metal cymbals.
"His dad truly inspired him to what he's doing," Demetra Knowles said. Clarence "really wants to make sure he makes him proud. If [James] was still here, he would be very proud of him."
McBounds splits his high school time at Phillips in Bronzeville and the magnet arts program at the Gallery 37 Center for the Arts Downtown. His longterm goal with drumming is to "travel and tour with famous musicians and celebrities." If that doesn't work, McBounds hope to become a music producer, a craft he's already learning at the Berklee program in Boston.
"I've been learning so much about the drums since I've been here, including new playing techniques and reading music," McBounds said. "But I know I still have more work to do."
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