Sonny Rollins

And in those days, there were other musicians there, you know, so.

Yeah, it scared me a lot.

It scared me a lot.

But again, I was lucky because I could play an instrument, and a lot of the other prisoners knew of me, so I immediately had respect from them.

But of course, you know, being locked up is no joy ride.

Well, it took a little while, but...

You know, I slid back a couple of times and everything.

But I eventually had gotten down to the complete bottom, so I couldn't have gotten any worse.

You know, I mean, I was really in a complete... What was the bottom?

Well, the bottom was sleeping in parked cars and in garages and all that stuff, you know.

And what we used to call in those days carrying the stick.

Carrying the stick meant that you were homeless.

I guess today they would just say, guys, homeless.

But I did this mainly when I was in Chicago, right?

Chicago was where I sort of was out there on my own.

In New York, even though I was persona non grata at home, I could always perhaps get by or sneak in the house or something.

But when I was really away from home, I really had to pay a lot of dues, as we used to say.

Well, I didn't protect my horn.

I mean, I didn't have a horn, really.

I was barring other people's horns, yeah.