Lil Hardin Armstrong And Her Orchestra
Lillian Hardin Armstrong (née Hardin; February 3, 1898 – August 27, 1971) w… Read Full Bio ↴Lillian Hardin Armstrong (née Hardin; February 3, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was a jazz pianist, composer, arranger, singer, and bandleader. She was the second wife of Louis Armstrong, with whom she collaborated on many recordings in the 1920s.

Her compositions include "Struttin' with Some Barbecue", "Don't Jive Me", "Two Deuces", "Knee Drops", "Doin' the Suzie-Q", "Just for a Thrill" (which was a hit when revived by Ray Charles in 1959), "Clip Joint", and "Bad Boy" (a hit for Ringo Starr in 1978). Armstrong was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2014.

She was born Lillian Hardin in Memphis, Tennessee, where she grew up in a household with her grandmother, Priscilla Martin, a former slave from near Oxford, Mississippi. Martin had a son and three daughters, one of whom was Dempsey, Lil's mother. Priscilla Martin moved her family to Memphis to escape from her husband, a trek the family made by mule-drawn wagon. Dempsey married Will Harden, and Lil was born on February 3, 1898. Will died when Lil was seven, though Dempsey later remarried to John Miller.

During her early years, Hardin was taught hymns, spirituals, and classical music on the piano. She was drawn to popular music and later blues.

Hardin first received piano instruction from her third-grade teacher, Violet White. Her mother then enrolled her in Mrs. Hook's School of Music. At Fisk University, a college for African Americans in Nashville, she was taught a more acceptable approach to the instrument. She received a diploma from Fisk, returning to Memphis in 1917. In August 1918, she moved to Chicago with her mother and stepfather. By then she had become a proficient sight-reader, a skill that helped her gain a job as a sheet music demonstrator at Jones Music Store.

The store paid Hardin $3 a week (US$52 in 2020 dollars), but bandleader Lawrence Duhé offered $22.50 (US$387 in 2020 dollars). Knowing that her mother would disapprove of her working in a cabaret, she made it known that her new job was playing for a dancing school. As observed by Thomas Brothers, the discrepancies between her education and that of Duhé's band members were apparent; when she asked what key the New Orleanians were going to play in, they remarked, "We don't know what key. When you hear two knocks start playing." Three weeks later the band moved to a better booking at the De Luxe Café, where the entertainers included Florence Mills and Cora Green. From there, the band moved up to Dreamland. Here the principal entertainers were Alberta Hunter and Ollie Powers. When King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band replaced Duhé's group at Dreamland, Oliver asked Hardin to stay with him. She was with Oliver at Dreamland in 1921 when an offer came for the orchestra to play a six-month engagement at the Pergola Ballroom in San Francisco. At the end of that booking Hardin returned to Chicago while the rest of the Oliver band went to Los Angeles. She later studied at the New York College of Music, where she earned a post-graduate diploma in 1929.

In the 1930s, sometimes billing herself as "Mrs. Louis Armstrong", Hardin led an "All Girl Orchestra", a mixed-sex big band which broadcast nationally over the NBC radio network. In the same decade she recorded for Decca as a swing vocalist and performed as piano accompanist for other singers. She also performed with Red Allen.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Hardin worked mostly as a soloist, singing and playing piano. In the late 1940s, she decided to leave the music business and become a tailor, so she took a course in tailoring. Her graduation project was to make a tuxedo for Armstrong.

Hardin returned to Chicago and the house on East 41st Street. She made a trip to Europe and had a brief love affair in France, but mostly she worked around Chicago, often with fellow Chicagoans. Collaborators included Red Saunders, Joe Williams, Oscar Brown Jr., and Little Brother Montgomery.

In the 1950s, Hardin recorded a biographical narrative for Bill Grauer at Riverside Records that was issued in LP form. She would again appear on that label in 1961, participating in its project Chicago: The Living Legends as accompanist for Alberta Hunter and leader of her own hastily assembled big band. The Riverside recordings led to her inclusion in a 1961 NBC network special, Chicago and All That Jazz, and a follow-up album released by Verve. In 1962, she began writing her autobiography with Chris Albertson, but she changed her mind when she realized the book would include experiences that might discomfit Louis Armstrong, so the project was delayed until his death. She died before finishing the book.
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Lil Hardin Armstrong And Her Orchestra Lyrics


Basin Steet Blues Won't you come along with me To the Mississippi We'll take a…
Basin Street Blues Won't you come along with me To the Mississippi We'll take a…
Clip Joint Broken hearted. All because I started. Fell in love with a h…
My Hi-De-Ho Man It's cost me a lot But there's one thing that I've…
Or Leave Me Alone This affair is killin' me I can't stand uncertainly Tell me …


Royal Garden Blues No use of talkin', no use of talkin' You'll start in…