One Guy You'd Better Listen To

An interesting little story about the late master harmonica player Larry Adler, told by singer/actor Theodore Bikel in his 1994 autobiography "Theo":

When [Larry] was a kid of about fifteen or sixteen, he was already beginning to be known as a musician of great talent and was hired to do jobs in grown-up places like nightclubs. He was hired as the opening act at a club in Chicago one day, and after the opening there was a big champagne party to celebrate a successful beginning of the engagement.

Larry declined the champagne and drank Coca-Cola instead. A man came up to him and said, "You're terrific when you play that thing. Where you from, kid?"

Larry told him that his home was Baltimore.

The man asked, "You a Jewish kid?"

Larry nodded yes.

The man continued: "You go to shul?"

"Not very often," Larry replied.

"You should go to shul every week, kid, every week."

Then he asked, "Is your mother alive?"

Larry said, "sure."

"You write to her?"

Larry admitted that he did not do that too often, either.

"Every day, you should write to her every day, you hear me?"

With that the man walked away.

Puzzled, young Larry Adler asked a man who was standing next to him, "Who was that?"

The man said, "You don't know? That was Al Capone."








Photo: The original Scarface, Chicago's Boss of Bosses, Alphonse Capone