HOLMES `DADDY-O’ DAYLIE, 82
Pioneer radio personality
By Sufiya Abdur-Rahman
Tribune staff reporter
February 14, 2003
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.