Louis Armstrong (1901 - 1971)
August 4th 1901: Louis Armstrong born
On this day in 1901, American musician Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Armstrong was born into a poor background, with his father leaving when he was an infant and his mother frequently leaving her children with relatives. When he was eleven, Armstrong fired a gun into the air in celebration of New Year’s Eve and was arrested and sent to the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys. It was here that Armstrong was first introduced to music, and upon leaving the home he entered the blues scene and learned the trumpet. His music career continued to grow, and he became a famous jazz musician in New Orleans, often playing on riverboats in the summer. In the 1920s, he moved to Chicago and then New York, beginning to record solo music and playing in big bands. Armstrong’s music was hugely influential in the development of the jazz style, however, many critics at the time failed to see past his race and wrote scathingly racist reviews. Additionally, Armstrong had difficulties throughout his life, often running into trouble with the mob and having a series of failed marriages. Undeterred, Armstrong toured Europe in 1933, and went on to set a number of precedents for African-Americans, including becoming the first African-American to get featured billing in a major Hollywood movie. In 1957, in the wake of the desegregation situation in Little Rock, Armstrong vocally spoke out in favour of the civil rights movement, famously declaring “The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell”. By the 1960s, he was touring the world and performing 300 nights a year, even breaking the Iron Curtain and performing in communist countries. Despite a slight drop in popularity, in 1967 Armstrong released a lasting hit with ‘What a Wonderful World’. His health gradually declined, and Louis Armstrong died in his sleep in July 1971, aged sixty-nine.
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