Sonny Rollins Interview (page: 5 / 8) Greatest Living Jazz Soloist	Print Interview

Early in your career, you encountered great success and recognition, but you also experienced some of these problems -- drugs and prison. Can you talk about that?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Sonny Rollins: I used to be reticent about talking about that, because it was always like, "Well, let's stigmatize this jazz musician. Let's talk about, Oh, he's a criminal." But my wife, my dear departed wife used to tell me, "Well, no, Sonny, don't be afraid. Don't not want to talk about it, because after all, you have been through it, you came through it, and it's a great experience. You have conquered it, so to speak." So I don't mind talking about it now.

Sometimes I wonder why I am asked that.

It's important to understand the kind of obstacles people have to overcome to come out on the other end and achieve something great, as you have. That's the only reason.

Sonny Rollins: Well, that was the rationale actually, not to be ashamed about it. Most people might ask for the same reason, but people that are involved are super-sensitive perhaps anyway. But anyway, yeah, I got involved.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. We were following our idols. Charlie Parker. And we were told Billie Holliday used drugs, and all this stuff. But my main influence -- our main influence -- was Charlie Parker; he was our messiah. And Charlie Parker used drugs, so all of us figured that, "Oh, if he used drugs, it's okay." But it wasn't okay, because guys drop through the holes, you know. In my case, I followed Charlie Parker and began using. Well, a lot of guys were using drugs really. Fats Navarro, the great trumpet player, died at a very early age from drugs, and a lot of the guys were on drugs really, a lot of the great be-bop players. And I went along and I got messed up, and it took me quite a while to straighten myself out, you know.

How tough was it?

Sonny Rollins: It was pretty tough. It was very tough.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I went through some really terrible times. I don't know whether I should really even mention it, but you mentioned that I had to go to prison and all that stuff. I was in a state where they had me in a straitjacket at one time. Can you understand what it would feel like to be in a straitjacket? I know. I couldn't either, but I was, and it was brought about by sort of a drug psychosis in prison. I mean I just went completely... But it was tough, it was tough. I mean at that time they put you in -- there's a place in New York they used to call the Tombs. You've probably heard of it. I mean it was like a living tomb, with all the people. So I was there, and the withdrawal -- physical symptoms, which were unbelievable.

But I had my family. I was a very bad guy. I used to steal from my house. I was just an outlaw, an outcast. My father was in the Navy, he wasn't really around during this time.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I was a pretty bad guy. But my mother's love and her belief in me, I think -- and Charlie Parker, who took me aside and told me that this was not the way to be -- that had a tremendous effect on me, so that I finally realized that, well, I am not going anyplace. I'm a pariah. People see me coming, they go across the street, you know. So I eventually was able to go to a hospital. There used to be a big hospital in New York -- not in New York -- in Kentucky, Lexington, which was a very good place. It was a place where you were able to treat addicts, something like the Betty Ford Clinic in later years. Anyway, you were treated in a humane manner, as a sick person, not as a criminal, and you went there for a certain amount of time, and you took what they called "the cure." I went there voluntarily, and by that time I was determined to get away from drugs, so I was able to go there, and through my determination to do it, that place served me well.

[ Key to Success ] Courage

If I didn't have the determination to stop, it would not happen, because there are people that went there, that still used drugs when they came out. Several people over the years have come to me, asking me about Lexington. In fact, there was recently a guy who wants to write a book about Lexington, the rehabilitation center there.

During all this time, were you without your music?

Sonny Rollins: I wouldn't say I was without my music. I always had my music. I would get involved with the bands in these institutions. My music was always with me.

You have described it, if you were quoted correctly, as walking into the lion's den and coming out alive. Is that right?

Sonny Rollins: Yeah, I guess so, although I think I might have a better chance with a lion than with some of these substances. But yeah. That, in effect, is what happens.

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