A Noteworthy Nugget of Land of Lincoln Lore (2)
Miles Davis was born in Alton, Illinois on May 26, 1926. In 1927, his family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois, a town notorious for its crime. "East St. Louis is one of the more impoverished communities in Illinois."
I'm not totally sure of the details of the story, but in 1954, after achieving success in the jazz world and developing an addiction to heroin, Davis returned to his childhood home and, with the help of his father, relieved himself of his dependence on the drug.
He locked himself for two weeks in either his childhood room or a room in the barn, and refused to leave until he had beaten his addiction. The drug went on to claim a generation of jazz musicians, and if Mr. Davis hadn't beaten it, we may never have had one of my favorite albums of all time, Kind of Blue.
I'm not totally sure of the details of the story, but in 1954, after achieving success in the jazz world and developing an addiction to heroin, Davis returned to his childhood home and, with the help of his father, relieved himself of his dependence on the drug.
He locked himself for two weeks in either his childhood room or a room in the barn, and refused to leave until he had beaten his addiction. The drug went on to claim a generation of jazz musicians, and if Mr. Davis hadn't beaten it, we may never have had one of my favorite albums of all time, Kind of Blue.