Jazz deejay Holmes
"Daddy-O" Daylie was to rhyme
what Michael Jordan was to basketball
or what Redd Foxx was to comedy,"
said his longtime
friend, Dempsey
Travis. In other words, he was tops, Pops.
Well, listen. "This is your musical host who loves
you most," he used to say to greet his radio listeners. And to introduce
a news broadcast he would say, "And now, old midnight sun, don't run before
we pay our musical dues. We wanna take you on a five-minute cruise
through the world's latest news."
Mr.
Daylie, 82, who spread his upbeat chatter over the airwaves for WAIT-AM,
WMAQ-AM,
WGN-AM and other radio and TV stations
from the 1940s
to the 1970s, died Thursday, Feb. 6, in Little
Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen
Park.
"He was one of the first major African-American radio personalities who not
only had a following in the black community but had a following in the white community
as well," said Bruce DuMont,
president of the Museum of Broadcast
Communications.
Mr. Daylie,
born in Covington,
Tenn., was the youngest of 12 children.
His mother died in childbirth, and his father died five years later, according
to articles published in the Tribune. An older brother in Chicago took him in,
and in 1938 Mr. Daylie graduated from Morgan
Park High School.
He was a basketball star
in school and played for the Harlem
Globetrotters for about six months, Travis said. But that's not what made
him famous. The job he got next as a bartender in Chicago really got people talking
about Daddy-O. In true
Globetrotters' style, he entertained people with tricks while he served them drinks.
"`I'm as nice as a mother's
advice,'" he would say as he flipped ice cubes behind his back, Travis
said.
One night while Mr. Daylie was bartending at El
Grotto Supper Club in the Pershing
Hotel, 64th
Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, original "Today"
show host Dave Garroway
caught his act, Travis said. Garroway told him, "`You're wasting your charm,'"
and Mr. Daylie remembered that, Travis said.
In the late 1940s, Mr. Daylie began working as a radio host, and he brought along
all the showmanship
and jazz knowledge he picked up while being a club bartender.
"When he put a song on, he would know something about the music, like he
was a cat--a musician," said Travis, who played piano. "If you didn't
know it, you would think he was a piano
player."
Mr. Daylie knew all the popular
jazz musicians of the time, including Billie
Holiday--one of his favorites--Louis Armstrong
and Duke Ellington, from bartending
at venues where they played, Travis said. And he had a good ear for talent.
He got the Ramsey
Lewis Trio an audition with Chess
Records when they were playing at a little lounge in Lake Meadows in the 1950s.
"One night he came through and said, `Hey, you guys are pretty good. You
should have an album out,'" said Lewis, who's now a Grammy
Award-winning pianist. At the time, they brushed him off, but Mr. Daylie returned
to the lounge a few weeks later with an audition set up with Leonard and Phil
Chess.
And when Chess Records recorded one of the trio's songs but didn't release it,
Mr. Daylie played it on his radio show. "He started a buzz,
and they released the record," Lewis said.
For about four years after, Mr. Daylie unofficially managed Lewis, bassist Eldee
Young and drummer Redd
Holt.
Mr. Daylie also was involved in civic activities, Travis said. He was a member
of the NAACP,
the Urban League and Operation
PUSH.
Mr. Daylie co-owned Starlite
Bowling Lanes on 87th
Street near Cottage Grove Avenue.
Mr. Daylie is survived by his wife, Marcheta, and his brother, Oliver.
A memorial service with speakers and a band performance will be held at noon Feb.
21 in the Harambee House, 11901 S.
Loomis Ave.
Copyright
2003 Chicago Tribune (Registration required)
2:31:02 PM 
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