Prison Records

Like an old fighter, Sonny Brown struts across the green grass at Tehachapi, grinning in the morning sun behind bopster shades. A blue knit cap rides his head like a fez. Sonny always wears the cap; it sets him apart from the retinue of convicts who surround him.

Sonny (William) Brown is a jailbird, too, but he is not bound for chow. He is going to the gym to cut an album. Though Sonny has been in prison for all but 42 months of the past 20 years, he is, at age 42, at the peak of a spectacular musical career. Master of the piano, flute, bass, guitar and sax, he also composes, arranges and conducts. Lately he has led his band in three separate dates at Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel. He and his band recently toured the state to rave reviews and tearful standing ovations.

Sonny is black. The kind of music he creates is a blend of jazz and gospel, with a glossy Stan Kenton sound and a chorus singing Sonny's simple lyrics--about peace and freedom, with a little protest thrown in. His career began in Cincinnati, where he wrote his first song before he was eight. Through a draft-board mix-up in 1943, Sonny was tapped for the Marines when he was only 14, got out, then served in the Navy from 1945 to 1948. By the time he was discharged, he had become a good clarinetist and saxophonist, as well as a good lightweight boxer. He settled in south-central L.A., boxed professionally and played in small jazz clubs for two years. He developed a heroin habit, was caught stealing a record player and thrown in jail. From then on, Sonny bounced back and forth between the state pens at Chino, Folsom and San Quentin, with only brief intervals on the street.

On parole, Sonny found life was almost worse than inside: "The board would tell me, 'Stay away from nightclubs.' Now how was I gonna play music if I couldn't go near no nightclubs? One time they got me a job with a seed company in Lompoc. They had me standin' there with a brush this long, pollinatin' flowers. I was a human bee. If a brother had ever seen me doin' that, he'd cut me dead."

In 1965 Sonny finally got lucky. For the first time, he was sent to one of California's most liberal penitentiaries, the California Correctional Institution at Tehachapi. The prison's superintendent is G.P. Lloyd, a penologist whose philosophy is "I trust everybody until they show me different." Lloyd got to talking with Sonny about music. In April of 1967 he let Sonny start a prison band and chorus. Sonny called the group the Fallen Sparrows, and Lloyd decided it should be allowed to travel the state and perform.

There was no legal provision for such a move, so Lloyd invited his boss, R.K. Procunier, California Director of Corrections, to audition the Sparrows. Procunier liked them so much he started crying. Since then, Sonny and the Sparrows--a chorus of 45 or more and a 15-man band--have made the rounds of the prisons, taped a television show in Bakersfield, played at high schools and colleges, Air Force bases, conventions, even a county fair.

When the group performed at U.C.L.A. last November, moans Lloyd, "they had to walk, 80 of them--men in for charges ranging from drugs up to murder --a quarter-mile across a campus milling with students. We only take seven guards. Any number could have just walked away. But nobody ever has."

Pheasant Under Glass. To build musical morale back at Tehachapi, Sonny got permission for the Sparrows to rehearse in patterned bell-bottoms and sports shirts instead of regulation blue denim. Besides, as black Percussion Man Warren Duncan says, "It's a gas to ride the buses, see all the mountains and the jack rabbits and road runners. And the concerts are wild. Young ladies crying at our music, and all those important people standin' up to give us an ovation. And the buffet dinner we had that time at the Ambassador Hotel . . . professional waiters. Ham. Mushroom sauce. Pheasant under glass. We didn't get back till 1 a.m."

Recently RCA sent a sound truck and seven producers and engineers up to Tehachapi and recorded the Fallen Sparrows--playing all Sonny Brown songs, which did not sound at all like the work of a man who has spent his life behind bars: "Troubles come, troubles go,/ In this life there's rain and snow./ Look at us and you'll see/ We're still calm and fancy-free."

The recording session took half a week and electrified the prison. The prisoners hung out down by the gym, waiting for Sonny to come out during breaks. The guards would bring Sonny coffee, even hold the door for the Sparrows when they went outside to talk to their fans. If there are any profits from the recording it will go not to Sonny or the Sparrows but to prison welfare. The wages of syncopation are nonetheless sweet. Sonny's present jail term (this time for driving under the influence of drugs) could run for life. But he is up for parole next April and will probably get out, perhaps for good. Meanwhile, he has the Sparrows and--who knows --maybe another date with RCA.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.