I found this video while looking through news archives. I'm pretty sure it's the only video of him speaking anywhere online. What struck me is how much of a deep south accent he had. Almost like a New Orleans accent. Skip to 17:20 for the clip.

http://www.wolfsonarchives.info/vie..._term=Trafficante&fileid=WC07715.mp4

Great find with that video. He has a very distinctively southern accent.

I've always wondered what his other son's got involved in doing. He had 4 others aside from Santo Jr.

Nice find LittleMan. I know of course they don't, but I am always expecting mobsters to have a NY accent.

Terence, I'm not sure about his sons. There are some interviews online with Scott Deitche. If anyone knows, it's him.

For comparison here's a video of Carlos Marcello. I can only imagine what their conversations sounded like. Sort of a deep south-Sicilian-mob coded language lol

https://youtu.be/6Gdgwpci-ZI

Interestingly the New Orleans accent isn't a southern accent at all, it sounds more like Brooklynese... when talking to NOLA natives they sound like they're from New York to the untrained ear. This is because NOLA had a lot of the same immigrants as NYC. And this is a different accent than the Louisiana cajun accent.

But I do remember that Sammy the Bull said he met with the underboss of the NOLA family in the late 80s and he said he couldn't understand a word he was saying, so no idea lmao.

@strubbs
a possible explanation ...Sammy the Bull is a notorious liar...;-)

Sorry guys but that's not a Southern accent. That's true blue Southern Creole accent like most coonasses have oddly enough. I'm actually over some Louisiana crews when we go on storm so I know the accent very well. I never would have expected that, he sounds almost just like Marcello who had the Creole voice too. It's a mix between Southern/Creole/French Creole.

Stubbs I have to disagree. That is coonass all day long. It's not even close to a Northern accent.

Stubbs, what you're referring to is the Yat accent of New Orleans. You're right in that it could similar to a Brooklyn accent but only a small percentage of people in New Orleans have that accent. Marcello in no way had this accent.

I'm slightly confused over what some are considering a southern accent. Of course, these aren't your stereotypical Tidewater accents but that's just one of many. Would you not consider Marcello and Trafficante to have a southern accent? I would argue an accent native to the south would, by definition, be a southern accent, which both have.

True Southern accent is what y'all consider to be dumb redneck talk. That's a true Southern accent. Louisiana has it mixed in but their accents are more Southern Creole/French Creole. There is a big difference.

Creole/French Creole had always been strong in the gulf region of the states going from heavy to light in dialect and pronounciation. Dix, you live in Alabama, you never visited Baldwin or Mobile counties? You can also hear that accent in Pensacola Florida.

Dixiemafia, I hope I didn't mislead into thinking I'm an outsider looking in when it comes to southern accents. To be clear, I was born just across the river from Louisiana in Mississippi. Much of my family is from south Louisiana. I've lived or worked in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. My overall point was there is no one southern accent. There is an array with overlapping features and that both Marcello and Trafficante fall within this array. My surprise was how much of an accent Trafficante had.

Your point about the true southern accent being redneck talk, I'll just have to disagree.

Spending years in the Southeast and having family from
Northern Mississippi to Tennessee I've heard a quite a few
Accents.
To.the average person from say New Jersey or Cleveland
They all sound the same.
But every southern state and it's regions has it own distinct accents.
Somebody from Carthage Mississippi sounds different
Than someone from Columbia Tenneseee.
I have family in Tampa. They have no southern accent.
They were raised and born there.
I think maybe Santos has a Floridian accept if there
Is such a thing

Giacomo, you're exactly right. Hearing someone born in Mobile in the 1930s it can be difficult to distinguish if they're from Mobile or New Orleans or anywhere in between. If I heard that clip of Trafficante, without knowing who he is, I would be able to place him somewhere on the Gulf.

Galassi, a lot of people are losing their accents in Tampa and everywhere else unfortunately. There's a video of Trafficante's lawyer Frank Ragano. He has a distinct drawl that the majority of people would be able to place him as being from somewhere in the south at least. He's a Tampa native.
You said maybe Trafficante has a Florida accent. Dixie said it's not a southern accent, it's a southern Creole accent. Aren't both of these akin to saying 'he has a Chicago accent, not a Midwest accent' or 'that's a Boston accent, not a New England accent'?

People have the accent of where they learned the language. If a guy learned English in the south, either by growing up there, or that was where he immigrated to from Italy, that's the accent he would have for life. We think of mob guys as having NY accents because nowadays most gangsters come from the northeastern US, but when there were families all over, I am sure there were different accents. Philadelphia and NY have very different accents, even though they are only 100 miles apart.

I have about 15 crews in Baldwin, Mobile and Escambia FL Counties that I talk too daily not to mention I have vacationed in Pensacola in the past so I know the FL/AL/MS Gulf Coast region VERY WELL. Accents there are different from Louisiana accents. All of them are born and raised in the region and NONE of them have Cajun/Creole accents.

Sorry, I was just mentioning people from NOLA have that Yat accent, wasn’t referring to the video accent, just speaking in generalities.

I understand what you mean Stubbs. The Yat accent is an anomaly among accents in the South. It may even sound similar to a Long Island accent but I don't know enough about New York accents to tell.
Dixie, I think our disagreement may be just a matter of terminology. You're right in that you won't find someone with a Cajun accent from the Alabama gulf. But a Creole/Gulf accent is very different than a Cajun accent. Troy from Swamp People has an archetypal Cajun accent. Historically, the Cajun accent has been viewed as lower class and backwater even by others in South Louisiana. Creole accents, now dying out, were prevalent in and around larger population centers along the Gulf. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Biloxi, Mobile, extending into Florida and Texas. The Cajun accent is much more confined to rural counties in South Louisiana and spoken only by a certain population, the Cajuns.
On a side note, most people don't realize what had a large influence on what's considered the old south syrupy drop-all-the-r's accents. Many people who spoke with these accents had black nannies. I don't know for sure, but I would bet that growing up Trafficante had one or at least black help in the house, judging by his accent.

I think you're right brother. I'm glad we understand each other because it is very different on the Bama/MS Gulf Coast compared to deep swamp South Louisiana and you understand what I was trying to say and now I got you. I spent a LOT of time in Tampa ever since I was born and his accent wasn't local Tampa/Ybor City talk either. I think you may be on to something with the black nanny too for real. I'm about the same distance between Tampa and NOLA and if I had to bet I would have said he was from NOLA had I not known who he was, etc. I totally didn't expect it at all.

Speaking of Ybor City, man I miss going there and watching the old man roll cigars. I could live in that room with that smell!

This is Santo Jr. Santo Sr died in 1954. The five sons were Frank, Sanot Jr., Henry, Fano, and Sam

Excellent find, even though they call him SantoS, Not Santo. Thanks for sharing.

Trafficante's accent is not too dissimilar to what some other old time Ybor /West Tampa residents have. At least the ones I've heard, not too many left from that generation.