FM
Biography
Contrary to the Musichound's Guide to Lounge speculation that he was a fictitious creation whose name was taken from Sonny Rollins and Lester Young, Sonny Lester is a real person who's been an active and successful A&R man and producer throughout most of the last 50 years.
Like many of the musicians discussed on this site, Lester got his start as an instrumentalist in the big band days. In his case, he played in the trumpet section of several bands until he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. He wasn't able to get into one of the many fine military bands active at the time, though, and slogged through France, Belgium, and Germany as an infantryman, earning a Purple Heart along the way. One of his duties as a dogface was turning prisoners over to his battalion's intelligence officer, Henry Kissinger, for interrogation. At the very end of the campaign, Lester was finally transferred into the band of the 84th Infantry Division. When the division was later presented with a Presidential Unit Citation, President Truman commented that he'd never seen so many combat decorations in a military band before.
