Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly-recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man.
Armstrong was born and brought up in New Orleans, a culturally diverse town with a unique musical mix of creole, ragtime, marching bands, and blues. Although from an early age he was able to play music professionally, he didn't travel far from New Orleans until 1922, when he went to Chicago to join his mentor, King Oliver. Oliver's band played primitive jazz, a hotter style of ragtime, with looser rhythms and more improvisation, and Armstrong's role was mostly backing. Slow to promote himself, he was eventually persuaded by his wife Lil Hardin to leave Oliver, and In 1924 he went to New York to join the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. At the time, there were a few other artists using the rhythmic innovations of the New Orleans style, but none did it with the energy and brilliance of Armstrong, and he quickly became a sensation among New York musicians. Back in Chicago in 1925, he made his first recordings with his own group, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, and these became not only popular hits but also models for the first generation of jazz musicians, trumpeters or otherwise.
Other hits followed through the twenties and thirties, as well as troubles: crooked managers, lip injuries, mob entanglements, failed big-band ventures. As jazz styles changed, though, musical purists never lost any respect for him -- although they were sometimes irritated by his hammy onstage persona. Around the late forties, with the help of a good manager, Armstrong's business affairs finally stablilized, and he began to be seen as an elder statesman of American popular entertainment, appearing in Hollywood films, touring Asia and Europe, and dislodging The Beatles from the number-one position with Hello Dolly". Today many people may know him as a singer (a good one), but as Miles Davis said: “You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him."
The 62-year-old Armstrong became the oldest act to top the US charts when "Hello Dolly" reached #1 in 1964. Four years later Satchmo also became the oldest artist to record a UK #1, when "What a Wonderful World" hit the top spot.
Didn
Louis Armstrong Lyrics
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Talk about rain, oh, my Lord
Didn't it fall, didn't it fall?
Didn't it fall, my Lord, didn't it rain?
Oh, it rained forty days
And it rained forty nights
There was no land nowhere in sight
God, send the angel to spread the news
To the East to the West
To the North to the South
All day all night
How it rained, how it rained
Didn't it rain, children?
Talk about rain, oh, my Lord
Didn't it fall, didn't it fall?
Didn't it fall, my Lord, didn't it rain?
Some at the window, some at the door
Some said, "Noah, can't you take a little more?"
"No, no," said Noah, "no, no, my friends"
The nature got to keep; you can't get in
I told you, I told you a long time ago
You wouldn't hear me; you disobey me
Lord, send the angel a warning to you
It began to rain and now you are through
Well, it rained forty days
Forty nights without stopping
Noah was glad
When the rain stopped dropping
Knock at the window, knock at the door
Come on, brother Noah
Can't you take little more?
No, no, my brothers, you are full of sin
God has the key; you can't get in
Would you listen? how it rained
Didn't it rain, children?
Talk about rain, oh, my Lord
Didn't it fall, didn't it fall?
Didn't it fall, my Lord, didn't it rain?
Louis Armstrong's song "Didn't It Rain" is a gospel-blues classic that tells the story of the great flood that washed the world clean according to the biblical accounts. Through the lyrics, Armstrong narrates the story of Noah's Ark and the catastrophic downpour that caused the flood. The song's chorus "Didn't it rain, children?" is a call and response, urging people to actively participate in the narration of the great flood.
Armstrong describes the rain as coming down in a heavy and relentless stream, falling for 40 days and 40 nights, an allusion to the biblical story's time frame. The rain was so intense that there was nowhere to find land, and people had to seek shelter either at their windows or doors. The song conveys a message of warning, with Noah as the singer, continuously calling for people to heed his warning to prepare and get on the ark. Still, they did not listen and paid the price for their disregard for his warning.
The lyrics of "Didn't It Rain" use powerful imagery, with the focus being the overpowering nature of the rain, which is depicted as the wrath of God. Armstrong's gritty blues delivery and his band backing his vocal supports the message of the song, and it is no surprise that this song is considered a cornerstone of African American gospel music.
Line by Line Meaning
Didn't it rain, children?
Did you see how much it rained, my dear children?
Talk about rain, oh, my Lord
It was a lot of rain, my Lord
Didn't it fall, didn't it fall?
It kept falling, didn't it?
Didn't it fall, my Lord, didn't it rain?
Didn't it just pour down, Lord? Didn't it rain like anything?
Oh, it rained forty days
It rained continuously for 40 days
And it rained forty nights
It rained all day and night for 40 consecutive days
There was no land nowhere in sight
There was no sight of land as it kept raining heavily
God, send the angel to spread the news
God sent an angel to deliver the message
He hastes his wings and away he flew
The angel flew away swiftly with his wings
To the East to the West
The angel traveled to the east and west directions
To the North to the South
The angel traveled to the north and south directions
All day all night
The angel was spreading the message day and night
How it rained, how it rained
It kept raining continuously
Some at the window, some at the door
People were looking out of the window and door
Some said, "Noah, can't you take a little more?"
Some people requested Noah to take in more people and not reject them
"No, no," said Noah, "no, no, my friends"
Noah refused and replied with a firm no to his friends
The nature got to keep; you can't get in
Nature has been disturbed and cannot take in any more people
I told you, I told you a long time ago
Noah reminds people that he warned them long ago
You wouldn't hear me; you disobey me
People didn't listen to Noah and disobeyed his advice
Lord, send the angel a warning to you
God sent a warning to people through his angel
It began to rain and now you are through
The rain has started and you won't survive it
Noah was glad, When the rain stopped dropping
Noah was relieved when the rain stopped falling
Knock at the window, knock at the door
People are asking Noah to let them in
Come on, brother Noah, Can't you take little more?
People are pleading with Noah to take them in
No, no, my brothers, you are full of sin
Noah refuses to take anyone else in and reminds them of their sins
God has the key; you can't get in
Only God can decide who gets to enter and who doesn't
Would you listen? how it rained
If only people had listened, they would have realized the amount of rain that was going to fall
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: ROBERTA MARTIN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
CarpeVitam1
"Louis and the Good Book" was the very first Long Playing Record I ever owned, way back in 1962 (I was 15 then). I still love to hear it!
François BENOIST
The same, born 1943, somewhat older than you!
Lelie
je retrouve toujours la même joie comme lorsque j'avais 6 ans et que je l'ecoutais le dimanche. C'était en 1964
William Fagan
I'm a couple of years younger than you and I have loved this album for over half a century. I gave my grandson, now aged 24, a copy at Christmas. When he was about 5 or 6 he always wanted this played in the car on Sunday drives. His favourite was and still is 'Jonah and the Whale'.
dave wallace
Thank you for this. Do you have any more from this album?
hanne bech
lovely music.
Dali384
Génial!!Yes!!
Anna Assoumou
😭😭😭la vraie musique
Gigi Erba
Il titolo originale dell'album ( LP ) pubblicato nel 1958 dalla Brunswick era " Swing Low Sweet Satchmo "
Rachel Epee Mandengue
Adorable