Charles Walker has a broad and varied background. He was born in Rochester, New York, where in high school his first organ lessons were at the Eastman School of Music. He attended Houghton College, earning his first degree in organ and voice. For several years he was a Toronto organist and recitalist, studying at the University of Toronto with Douglas Bodle and receiving the A.R.C.T. diploma in Organ Performance in 1973. While in Toronto, Charlie studied plainsong and liturgy at St. Michael’s Choir School, sang in the Mendelssohn Choir, and spent a year in seminary at Wycliffe College. Later he pursued graduate course work at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, and was also trained as a Suzuki piano teacher.

Charlie originally came to Canada to teach music in a private high school. He met his first wife, Susan, while studying in Switzerland. They returned to the Toronto area, and he served there for a year as assistant pastor and minister of music in a Baptist church before going back to teaching. Charlie has two children, both living in Vancouver: Jeremy, a software engineer, and Stephanie, a psychology graduate who is pursuing a career in energy healing.

In 1993, Charlie received a B.Ed. degree from Queen’s University, and in recent years was trained as a professional Web designer. He is currently teaching Communications Technology, Music and English with the Limestone District School Board. During the ‘90s he was musical director of Musick’s Pleasures, a Kingston Renaissance group devoted to performing in period costume. It was after a Musick’s Pleasures performance at St. George's Cathedral that he met his wife, Wendy Luella Perkins. Wendy is an ordained minister who freelances as a Church Growth Workshop Facilitator for the Unitarian Universalist Association; she also is leader of “Soulful Singing,” a music meditation group which meets weekly.