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Own the dream. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Louis Armstrong was the founding father of jazz. and one of last century's towering cultural figures.
who forever change the face. American music. Here to tell the story is Lawrence Burgreen, who wrote the definitive biography on the man known as Pops. Louis Armstrong, an extravagant life. Let's take a listen.
Look at your boy. Let me tell you what they You're the most no-buddest guy I've met my life. You've been eating up all my red beans and rice. Trying to bite me in the back of my wife, you old dog. You wait a minute, I'll come back.
I'll show you something. I'll be glad when you turn to Rasmodia. I'm going to talk about somebody who really occupies a special place in my heart. And, you know, I'm a biographer. I've written a number of biographies of iconic figures, everybody from Irving Berlin to Magellan to Casanova.
But there's something special about Louis Armstrong. And people who know, which is, you know, a huge amount of people, know what's really special about him. And it's hard to be a biographer of Louis because he is beyond category. And usually you can sit in judgment and. Comment and criticize and organize.
Louis is beyond category, I feel. And his emotional affect is so overwhelming. And it's so inspiring that, you know, I think he's in the category by himself. As I was researching Berlin, I realized that a lot of the background of popular music. Had to do with jazz, with crime figures, and especially New Orleans.
So I decided I would dare to do Louis Armstrong. I really didn't think I could get into that idiom. for a while, but then I did. And uh there's something about Louis which is so Open-ended, that almost anyone can participate.
Some people think of him as a, you know, laughing, smiling, grinning person with a white handkerchief, and he loves everybody and that growling voice. That was true. That was not an act. That was a genuine part of him. You travel a great deal.
Where do you find your best audiences? In which country? Everywhere I hit that note. Where do you hit it best? Where do you hit it best?
Every time I pick up the horn. What do you like least? Least, you know least, I don't have time to think about the least, but every time I look around, I got the horn in front of me for public and jamming with the cats that I know. And I don't expect too much, you know, I don't have time. Underlying that was an extraordinary life.
Of hardship that he overcame again and again, coming from the very bottom of the social ladder in New Orleans, which was highly stratified, and conquering it in two ways with his immense talent, which was he never took a music lesson in his life, he just picked this up literally on the street. I'll get there in a second. And partly because of his extraordinary spirit, his very American optimism, his resilience. That didn't mean that he was a happy clown by any means. His music to some extent he invented.
What we call jazz. reflected that, but it really came out of a specific lifestyle. But the way he overcame it, it's really extraordinary. But he started out to use the contemporary word disadvantage to put it mildly. He was the son of a whore.
He was married to a whore. He was surrounded by whores much of his early life. and he said they were some of the best people he ever met. When I say war, he lived near Storyville, which was the legendary red light district of New Orleans.
Well, it's all nice people, that's all I can say. I mean, growing up as a kid, I mean. They didn't uh do anything uh that would hurt us and they didn't tell us anything wrong. And uh quite naturally when they're having the good times at night round the hunky tunks and things like that, most of the kids was in bed in a way they didn't pay no attention. But I made up all right, I mean I didn't overdo it.
One of his early formant type experiences when he was a kid, 10 or 12 years old, was he was sent to reform school. He was arrested for petty crime. And this reform school was a dreadful place. Mm.
However, his paradoxical reaction to it. was he felt it was one of the best things. that ever happened to him. he admired the discipline that the people who ran it were trying to instil in him. And occasionally, if you can imagine this is true, when he got to New Orleans as an adult, he would go back to visit.
And remind them of who he was and renew his acquaintance.
Well, when I went to the sunset, Which was owned by Mr. Joe Glazer, my manager after that. I used to see a lot of the boys sitting around in Al Capone and his. Brigades would come in, you know. Yeah, many times.
We had some bad boys in New Orleans. We had some boys just as tough as the alcapones, boys right there in New Orleans. When I was coming up, selling newspapers, and they followed my life up, you know, from the time I left the hunky tunks to come up north and blow. And I went down there in 1931 to play at the suburban garden. But this night, They don't practice Man of two.
It's a big deal.
Now you bring on Louis Thompson, he's a New Orleans boy, and blah, blah, blah. But A second before this cat had to go to that mic and bring me on. He walked away and said, I just can't. Introduce that nigger. Can't do it.
So the the the Talton bars want to wash him within, you know what I mean. But anyhow, they come to me and say, tell me what he says. I say, well, don't worry about it. You know? I said, give me a card, boys.
And I walked through that mic. And he goes, ta-da! Shim! And I walked through that mic. And before I opened my mouth, there's all the white boys that I was raised with.
You know, sitting up there shopping. And they are in different sex and blah blah blah blah. Man, you thought the balls was coming in. And you've been listening to Lawrence Burgreen tell the story of Louis Armstrong, and you heard from Louis Armstrong himself. What a voice.
What a life. What a remarkable thing to understand that one of the worst experiences of his life being sent to reform school also had an upside. When we come back, more of the remarkable life story of Louis Armstrong here on Our American Stories. Uh Lee Habib here. As we approach our nation's 250th anniversary, I'd like to remind you that all the history stories you hear on this show are brought to you by the great folks at Hillsdale College.
And Hillsdale isn't just a great school for your kids or grandkids to attend, but for you as well. Go to hillsdale.edu to find out about their terrific free online courses. Their series on communism is one of the finest I've ever seen. Again, go to hillsdale.edu and sign up for their free and terrific online courses. Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts.
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Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful. Is your Jesus shaped more by culture than scripture? In our instant world, we've made Jesus a life coach, a therapist, a political ally. The Missing Messiah, a new book by Kyle Eidelman and Mark Moore, helps us understand how Western culture has gradually reshaped Jesus into our image and recognize the difference between a personalized savior and revolutionary king.
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Code Free Meat for 20% off. Plus, free New York strip, Texas smoked brisket, and Mediterranean chicken with code FREEMEAT at TrueNatureMeats.com. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt.
From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio.
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Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. And we continue with our American stories and with Lawrence Burgreen, who wrote the definitive biography of the man known as Pops. Let's continue where we left off, picking up With Armstrong himself.
Before I open my mouth, there's all the white boys that I was raised with. you know, sitting up there shop. They got rich, their fathers and left them the produce places and different things. When we were kids, you'd hang around, and after school, we'd go out in the lots and play cowboys and Indians with old broken slates and things like that. You know what I mean?
We were the Indians. And uh I've stood there 20 minutes. And they hollering, different such heads. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Man, you thought the walls was coming in.
Yes, And this announcer standing there, you say, well, I didn't know this would happen in the south in New Orleans, it never happened before.
So they fired him and everything, and I took over myself. I can't imagine, but this was Louis, you know, really extraordinary.
So that was actually a positive experience, and may have been his making in a way, because it gave him a sense of. Self-discipline, which he lacked as a small person, young person until that point. The New Orleans Sound was already in existence before Louis came along, and he got to it the most unlikely way. He was on his own at a very early age. living on the street.
hustling for nickels and dimes, playing and singing and trying to attract attention and just trying to survive, you know, as a street kid, as a street musician. And he was always looking for, especially as a younger person, for sponsors, people who could help him in some way. One of them was the back now legendary Fanli Karnovsky. The Karnofskis had come to New Orleans from Russia. They were Jewish.
They were to a certain extent outcasts as well. He helped them with their ragpicking trade, and through his efforts with them as a young child, he came across a tin bugle that he found in the street. It was dirty, it was corroded. They picked it up, they cleaned it off so it was usable. and he started to play.
To blow, as he would say. He kept on blowing for the rest of his life on that cornet and on other instruments. But at that point, he was simply using it to attract attention for their business as he was going down the street with them. When I got to be around 13 or 14 years old, Took me off the bugle and put me in the little brass band. Finally they made me the leader of the little band on the cornet, so we got so good that we could play the Saints Go Marching In for the boys to march to church every Sunday.
Yeah, that's And so those were his beginnings. It was not Juilliard. It was, you know, he never had a musical lesson in his life. I think he would have been stymied if he had.
So anything he picked up in jazz was from other musicians who was intuitive. And then there was also his great enthusiasm and zest for life as he got older. You know, that's what was so captivating. I'd just like to read you a paragraph, if I could, from the book, my description of what it was like to encounter Louis. Mm-hmm.
In the beginning he was a sound and only a sound. A strange blend of happy cacophony and tormented caterwauling. Nothing like it had been heard before. Not in New Orleans, where he was born in 1901, or Chicago, or St. Louis, where he played as an emerging virtuoso cornetist, and certainly not in New York.
Where Duke Ellington said of his first exposure to that sound, nobody had ever heard anything like it. and its impact cannot be put into words. nor had it ever been heard in Europe or in South America or Africa. but everywhere it would be known as the Sound of America.
Now how that happened is an extraordinary alchemy because when you think of some of the most famous Americans or Americans who are examples of American music, culture, or something, Louis Armstrong comes to mind. Unlike almost anybody else, he came from the most unlikely background and he established more popular songs than any other musician. And, you know, he really played two instruments. There was the cornet, and then, of course, his voice. The growling voice, and then the interplay of the two, you know, it was unmistakable.
Um Uh diner. Is anyone vinyl? In the state of Carolina, either is letting no. Show them me, dynamite ludicrous blazin'. Who never cities gazing to the eyes of dying?
Baby, every night watch I chase my back ball. Cause my dynamite changing mine, probably living here. You know, it's not a sweet voice, not for fun that you would want to lull you to sleep, but there was something so reassuring and authentic about it that it was part of what made Louie Louie. He also was in general, but there are some exceptions. And innocent.
He was often, people took more advantage of him than he did of them. He did occasionally get into fights, fist fights. Life in New Orleans could be very brutal. But and more he embraced music. and performing as his avenue to communicating with other people, the more extraordinarily secure and popular he became.
There were ups and downs along the way. Becoming a jazz musician at that time was not an easy route. He was often broke. Cheated on by the people he worked with or promoters, he uh Developed his own language, his own lingo, which persists. Right in.
My madness of Bant. Bye. Dispens that do that do that do zero. Many of that dogs are Love Good evening. He was really resilient.
something would come along. And he would pick up another gig. Eventually, he, in his search for someone who could be his protector and source of financial stability, he came across Joe Glazer. Ah. A joke laser was disreputable, to put it mildly.
He was a fight promoter. Who later became Louie's manager and other managers, but he was also a gangster. And that was part of the way he was effective. You didn't really want to cross Joe Glazer. Did he treat Louis well?
Well, yes and no.
So since he said Joe Glazer was his Boss, his protector, his manager, he got a measure of security because you didn't want to mess with Joe Glazer, who was a tough guy from the mob. On the other hand, he always shortchanged Louis Armstrong. Playing jazz in general was not a good way to become rich at that time, and nobody really knows how much of Louis' earnings Joe Glazer helped himself to, but it was more than would be considered fair or acceptable. Louis didn't care, he needed the security and the legitimacy, and Joe Glazer gave it to him. He managed to get Louis into various venues and neighborhoods that would otherwise have been closed to him, even in New Orleans.
So This was a very important connection. Eventually, it led to recording contracts. and uh his incredibly productive output. gambling establishments Sometimes a riverboat Sometimes something that was high society. but it was a long time until he got there.
And you've been listening to Lawrence Burguen tell the story of Louis Armstrong. And my goodness, he just hustled on the streets. He was a street kid, looking for an advantage, looking for an opportunity. I worked for a Jewish man who ultimately just bought and sold things off the street. and in the end, found a bugle.
And he started to play. And pretty soon he was on the In a Corner band as a young man, and pretty soon was the leader of that band. He learned music from other musicians, picked stuff up by intuition. It wasn't exactly Juilliard, Lawrence Burgreen said, but he had a sound, and nothing had ever sounded like what Louis sounded like before. As Duke Ellington said, nobody ever heard anything like it.
My goodness, if Duke Ellington is going to say that about you, well, that's true. When we come back, more of this remarkable American story, Louis Armstrong's story, here on Our American Stories. Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts. Why did I search the internet for answers to my cold sore problem?
Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history. But I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast.
Healthcare just got less painful. Is your Jesus shaped more by culture than scripture? In our instant world, we've made Jesus a life coach, a therapist, a political ally. The Missing Messiah, a new book by Kyle Eidelman and Mark Moore, helps us understand how Western culture has gradually reshaped Jesus into our image and recognize the difference between a personalized savior and revolutionary king. If you believe there's a more dangerous, more majestic Messiah than the one you've inherited, visit missingmessiah.com to learn more today.
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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500.
Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing.
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Mm.
And we continue with our American stories and with Lawrence Burgreen, who wrote what I believe the definitive biography on the man known as Pops. And the book is called Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life. Pick it up at Amazon or wherever you get your books. Let's pick up. where we last left off.
You know, there were racial codes. and segregation was the order of the day. I was determined. I had a chance to play with the best seven musicians coming through because I was really good myself or else they wouldn't have tolerated with me, you know? You got to be good or bad is the devil.
You can't take it for granted, even if we have Two, three days off, I still had the blow-right horn. A few hours, they keep up the chaps. I mean, I've been playing 50 years. And that's what I've been doing in order to keep in that groove there. I got a warm-up every day, at least hour.
Okay. You either have it or you don't. You play your horn just like you sing a song or a hymn. If it's in your heart, you express yourself in the tune. Usually, when musicians or celebrities have an autobiography.
It's ghost straight. or they have a collaborator. Louis Armstrong tried that once. But he also wrote his own called My Life in New Orleans. I should explain that his second favorite instrument after the trumpet or cornet was the typewriter.
He spent a great deal of time writing and typing with his own hunt and back method. after shows in the middle of the night. He wanted to write about the people, which he did in a very unvarnished way. And also Had a pet. interest in life which was gauge, as he called it, marijuana.
Many people attribute the popularity of marijuana that started around that time. in the jazz world to Louis Armstrong because people wanted to emulate him.
Well, that might be true. And he certainly was a popularizer of it. People certainly wanted to be like Louis in that respect. He felt it was essential. Both for his music and for his life.
Now, it probably wasn't great because when he smoked what he called a spliff. That was like almost a cigar. It was fat, it was very strong, it was not good for your lungs, to put it mildly, and it could get him in trouble with the law when he was traveling abroad. because it was illegal in some places. It also accounted partly for his growly voice.
When he was younger, he didn't really have a growly voice, but he felt it was essential for relaxing the way somebody else might say, well, scotch or beer or alcohol or something else. He was not that much of a drinker. Partly because so much of the booze that was around in those days was rotgot, you know, it was just banned for you.
So, his drug of choice, if you will, was marijuana. He was certainly aware of people around him who were unsavory. But as he said, he tried to see the good in everybody.
Well, that sounds like a you know, something they say, oh, right, okay, it sounds sort of saccharine, but that was really true in Louis, but and I think he earned it through painful experience in life which he authentically recorded.
So His life as well as his music is a document about the American spirit, I think, both the difficult side, the hard side, the unfairness and the cruelty, and the optimism and the striving. I think this reached its culmination in his later life when he sang It's a Wonderful World, which has now become, you know, sort of a saccharin song. But he really meant it. It was a huge hit. The colors of the rainbow.
So pretty in the sky More powerful on the faces Of people going by I see friends shaking hands. Saying, How do you do? They're really saying, I love you. I hear babies cry. I watch them grow They'll learn much more Then I never knew and I think To myself.
What I wanna fam. To be able to say after all he had been through that it's a wonderful world was really an extraordinary affirmation. You know, as I encountered Louie or talked to people about Louis, you didn't get a range of opinions. You got one. Louie was just a fantastic character.
I was skeptical to begin with, but you realized that he had this spirit that I'm talking about, which was really contagious. I don't know of anybody who doesn't love Louie. I'm sure they're out there somewhere. They might not have fully appreciated him. or they might have thought he was a simple person which he wasn't he was not educated in a formal way but um he was highly perceptive about people and very analytical Just a night.
Now, one of the things I liked about him, besides his sense of humor and his virtuosity and resilience. The name of the songs that he performed and played were just so beguiling. Basin Street Blues, King of the Zulus, Strutton with Some Barbecue. Sugarfoot Stomp, Chicago Breakdown, You Rascal You. You know, which was instead of I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal you.
Weatherbird, Muskrat Ramble, Big Butter and Eggman. I remember when I was a kid, I was at uh kinda very simple summer camp. and whenever it was a rainy day, They would play Muskrat Ramble. On the PA system. That was my first exposure to Louis Armstrong.
It's a bullion, it's joyful. What's the Buskrat Ramble? That kind of um benign anarchy, you know, was part of his popularity. And he was also, in terms of his temperament, Different from other jazz musicians. You could say of his era, Duke Ellington had a very upbeat, abelian temperament.
Not as abelian as Louis. I don't think anybody could be as abelian as Louis. But if you go to Miles Davis, And bebop. Completely different. Introverted.
Sullen. Hard drugs, also a genius. self-destructive, etcetera. Louis early on discovered that he had a. fondness or an instinct for being a father.
Perhaps the worst tragedy that occurred to him He was with his wife's ass girlfriend Daisy. in New Orleans and he adopted her son who was named Clarence. They had a house with a porch, as houses in New Orleans often do. And Clarence was out there playing one day, and he slipped and he fell on his head, you know, on the ground. He didn't die, but he was never the same after that.
He got appropriate medical treatment. but he always was not right in the head to use a hackneyed expression the rest of his life Louis felt incredibly guilty. that this had happened. That he hadn't been, you know, actually on the porch to watch carefully what could happen to Clarence. And he adopted Clarence.
and took care of Clarence for the rest of Louis Armstrong's life. You've been listening to Lawrence Burgreen, author of Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life. You can buy it wherever you buy your books. and pick it up. It's a terrific read.
when we come back. More of the remarkable life. Of Louis Armstrong, a quintessential American story of optimism and resilience. grit and talent. More of his story.
Here on Our American Stories. Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts. Why did I search the internet for answers to my cold sore problem?
Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history. But I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast.
Healthcare just got less painful. Is your Jesus shaped more by culture than scripture? In our instant world, we've made Jesus a life coach, a therapist, a political ally. The Missing Messiah, a new book by Kyle Eidelman and Mark Moore, helps us understand how Western culture has gradually reshaped Jesus into our image and recognize the difference between a personalized savior and revolutionary king. If you believe there's a more dangerous, more majestic Messiah than the one you've inherited, visit missingmessiah.com to learn more today.
Craving bold, authentic taste without kitchen chaos? True Nature Meats Japanese teriyaki style delivers tender beef glazed with sweet savory umami, pre-cooked perfection inspired by Japanese chefs. Eat in two minutes, slice over salads or plates, complaints turn to second healthings. Real meat, real flavor. Go to true naturemeats.com, code free meat for 20% off plus free New York strip, Texas smoked brisket, and Mediterranean chicken with code Free Meat at TrueNatureMeats.com.
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500.
Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast. Pay for by Public Investing.
Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures.
Mm.
And we continue with our American Stories and with Lawrence Burgreen, the author of Louis Armstrong, An Extravagant Life. Let's pick up where we last left off. Throughout his life, Louis never really became wealthy. He, you know, Joe Glazer, he earned a fair amount of money. Joe Glazer took a lot.
He gave away a lot. Many jazz musicians died broke or near broke. Louis was certainly not broke. He died a celebrity. He was living in New York at that point.
Nevertheless, he needed the money to survive. But he wasn't particularly competitive about it. What he really needed to do to survive was play music or encounter all sorts of people. I was just so glad to sit in a van with guys like King Oliver and Uh Tell me that Sydney Version Great Search. That was my happiness.
See a terrorist guy when he comes to be a star, the public wish that on him. Then you like that. 'Cause I was just satisfied sitting at tailgate there in the wagons. And another wagon would pull up on the corner and then we'd shade the wheels and that was my kick, you know, trying to blow that cat out of the wagon there. You know, many entertainers have a crowd of people, you know, groupies around them.
Louis's idea of a great bunch of groupies were. People from New Orleans, old friends, jazz musicians. Working girls, i.e. prostitutes, Ramby's A few priests, and other assorted people, the more vary, the better. You know, a totally American Louis Armstrong combination.
He just loved these people. A sense of sameness was not his style. He really liked the variety. And he made an effort, if they were all with him in the same place, to introduce everybody to everybody else. Rabbi, meet the prostitute.
And nuns as well. He wanted everybody to get along because he said that he saw a sense of divinity. In all people, didn't matter what kind of rich, poor, black, white, etc. He said he could see it. And again, just to make a comparison to Irving Berlin, where everything was so tightly controlled that it had to be note for note.
you know, just the way he intended. And that it was part of Berlin's excellence. And with Louis, it was different. He would play notes. But what mattered to him were these tiny micro pauses.
and irregularities in the rhythm between the notes. And he felt this is where giants could be found. In things that you don't necessarily hear, well, how do you respond to them? Your mind gets stimulated. and replaces it or invents something to put in these little gaps.
and he described it in rather clinical detail. For him, this was the secret of synchronization and the secret of jazz.
So, as he became more and more aware of it, he tended to emphasize that.
So, he felt part of jazz was what you were hearing, you know, the notes as written, but part of it was things that you didn't hear. That the mind was being tricked or stimulated into creating as you listen to it because the ear. anticipates Sounds before you actually hear them, so you become engaged. unconsciously without realizing it. And I think in some ways it's the key to what jazz is and the improvisatory nature of it.
But this was, so to speak, the gospel.
So to speak of what he was promoting. And you know, it was based on good vibes, on spirit, on feeling. If not for Louis Armstrong, I don't know what the jazz world would be like. I would be there. But he became an exponent of New Orleans jazz in a way that was really extraordinary.
And then later on, when he got into the show business mainstream with Hello, Dolly. other things he managed to remain himself almost the entire time And you know, the term selling out, things that we think of as being standard terms, they don't apply to him.
Well, people love me and my music, and you know I love them. I have no problems at all with people. The minute I walk on the bandstand, they know they're going to get something good. and no jive. And they know what they're there for.
That's why they come and they leave. Very satisfied. I see that, because I don't believe in getting up there. And uh hopefully. I made a statement the other day.
Why you don't hear of a lot of musicians that got famous and didn't stay that way because They they had the wrong idea. They figured after they got famous, and they're playing to a crowd of people. They playing for them from the heart. which gave them the the reputation They got so big now they watching the box office. Instead of blonde, they look till they're washing the box up and forget about them people.
And when you look around, you don't hear them no more.
So you don't play your public cheap at no time. I'm the audience myself. I'm own audience. And I don't like to hear myself play bad or sing bad. Say, I know I ain't gonna do it for you.
In nineteen sixty-nine. The Beatles dominated popular music, and so therefore. Many, quote, old-fashioned types of American music, their day was over.
So it was really a shock. when Hello Dolly shot to the top of the charts. And became a number one hit. Hello. Daddy is noisy.
Darling, it's so nice to have you back where you belong. And what was so extraordinary was that it overtook the Beatles in popularity. And that was for a while number one. It wasn't so much the song, which, if you've ever seen the musical on Broad, say it's okay, yeah, it's of its time. It was his interpretation.
He made it personal when he said, this is Lewis, Dolly. Because he went by all sorts of nicknames and nobody ever really knew for sure how to pronounce his name. Was it Louis? Was it Louis? His name was Satchmo, which was a New Orleans abbreviation for Satchel Mouth because his mouth was so big.
You know, all musicians in my days had nicknames. My name was Satchel Mouth, like a doctor's Satchel.
Well, I went to England. This fellow is strictly English, and he was the editor of the newspaper there. He shook my hand as I got off the train. He said, Hello, Satchel.
So, right away, my trauma blessed said, The man thinks you have more mouth than Satchel Mouth.
So, I was stuck with it, and it turned out all right.
So, he was introducing himself, as if he needed to, you know, in later life, as Lewis.
So it was a neat bit of self-promotion and also, I guess, honesty on his part. And eventually he became, instead of somebody from the margins of society, somebody who was Espousing central or important values that people could instantly recognize and ascribe to, of relating to people, of freedom and of joy. Everybody around the world Knows Louis Armstrong, the music, but he did become, almost without meaning to, a goodwill ambassador for the upbeat American spirit. When GIs overseas wanted to think about or wanted to hear something American, they often thought of Louis Armstrong's jazz. You know, it was just a quintessential American sound.
And it was something new. It didn't exist 100 years before. You know, and it was a composite of musical styles that came together in New Orleans, often in disreputable circumstances, like brothels, and which he promoted. And refined and popularized. That is jazz.
I mean, how do you define jazz? It's well, you could there are so many definitions of the word jazz and you know what that actually means, but I think Louis probably came closer to it than others.
Now, there are bebop musicians and many other geniuses in the field who would have different variations, some of them white, some of them black, some of them Creole, some of them a mixture, but still, Louis was the personification of it. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Lawrence Burgreen, who wrote what I believe is the definitive biography on the man known as Pops. We're talking about Louis Armstrong. And the book is called Louis Armstrong, An Extravagant Life.
Go to Amazon, go to your local bookstores, wherever you get your books. Pick this up. You will smile ear to ear throughout it and even through the suffering. Louis' response is just remarkable every time.
So much to learn from this man and how he lived his life. All of us. He wasn't in it for the money. I mean, he knew that his manager was probably taking more than his fair share. But what he really wanted to do more than anything was play music with great people and meet new people.
He saw divinity, the divinity and the divine in all people. He delighted in having a pastor and a prostitute, a rabbi and a barkeep, in the same place, introducing them. And the delight of his life must have been the topping of the Beatles on the charts in the late 1960s, a near impossibility. And of course, how Lawrence Burgreen ended things was just a perfect way to do it. Louis Armstrong was the goodwill ambassador.
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