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Sill was dental technician who became a combat engineer in the Army because his papers said he knew about, “dentures and bridges.” After serving in [[Casablanca]] during World War II, he was discharged from the Army and left Philadelphia, moving to California to stay with his mother at the beach. Upon arrival, he met four year old Chuck (muddy and scared that he was in trouble), and Chuck's mother Harriet, his future wife. He opened Cotton’s Club on Western Avenue and 35th, with Harriet’s brother, Cotton's Club ran afoul of the authorities and was closed for after hours drinking. Sill took some door to door sales positions which he did not enjoy, until he met Lester Bahari of Modern Records in 1946. He soon found himself working in the record store and was offered a distribution route covering the Fresno to San Diego territory, selling R&B and rock and roll genre records to stores and refreshing jukebox inventory. On his route, he noticed that he was driving by several radio stations and began befriending disc-jockeys, Sunday radio spins helped with his Monday sales.<ref name="Smith LOC 1986"> {{Cite LOC finding aid|author = Smith, J|url = https://www.loc.gov/item/jsmith000138/|title = Off the record interview with Lester Sill, 1986-03-13|date = 1986|accessdate = 04 November 2019}}</ref>
{{Blockquote
|text=We pulled up to the Sill's house and got out of the car, and were greeted by the entire family; Lester, his wife, Harriet, their four sons (their youngest, Lonnie, was close to the age of my daughters), their female collie, and six adorable, purebred tricolor collies. The puppies were so adorable that by the end of the evening we agreed to adopt one of them. To keep our new puppy's name consistent with the names of his litter-mates (all began with "Mac") we decided to call him Macduff.<br><br>All of the Sills except Harriet would attain success in Hollywood as part of the Sill/Kaye music publishing and music supervision dynasty, now in its third generation. Harriet achieved her own success as the matriarch and fighting tigress of the Sill family. You did not want to mess with a Sill or wight Chuck Kay, Harriet's son from a previous marriage.
|author=[[Wikipedia:Carole King|Carole King]]
|title= "[[Wikipedia: A Natural Woman (book)| ''A Natural Woman, A Memoir'']]"