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Nick Spitzer: Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins’ mother and father were from the Virgin Islands, though he grew up in Harlem. This is just a taste of Sonny Rollins’ composition, “Oleo,” played by the Miles Davis Band.
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Sonny Rollins: My grandmother was against my actually going into jazz music. It was a long, long time before she kind of accepted the fact that this was a respectable profession and something that I could make a living at and all this stuff. My mother, on the other hand, was a very artistic woman and a very industrious woman, and she went to night school and all this stuff. So she was in favor of whatever I did. She was right in my corner, whatever I did. She had great faith in me.
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NS: Sonny Rollins, a man of colossal talent and perseverance he credits to his mother.
Geno Delafose: Hey Mom! Happy Mothers Day. This is your baby boy Geno Delafose.
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GD: She was married to my father for 31 or 32 years. Always came out to the dances ever since Daddy first started playing. She was actually the PR person of the band. People would come hear us play, and they’d always ask, “Well, where’s your mom, where’s your mom?” She was kinda the party starter and everything else. Always kept us well-fed.
NS: She’d wear a cowboy hat and kind of a leopard skin scarf or shirt, and she always had a pepped up look out there.
GD: Oh yeah, you knew who Ms. Delafose was, that’s for sure.
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NS: For American Routes Shortcuts, I’m Nick Spitzer. Coming up, St. Louis soul singer Fontella Bass.
FB: They had try-outs for singers for the show. And we were in the tent; my best friend to this day, Sophia and Johnese, they were with me. And Sophie sent my name up, without me knowing. They wanted me to go on the road with them. So I said I was gonna leave, you know, because I was grown and gone from home. So now I’m on the train, thinking I’m leaving St. Louis for this big, great career, you know, I gotta make it, I gotta be somebody. And I hear this voice, “Do anyone know Fontella? Has anybody seen Fontella?” I say, “That’s my mom!” And she literally whooped me off the train.
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To hear the full program, tune in Saturdays at 5 and Sundays at 6 on WWNO, or listen at americanroutes.org.