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.
Sing Sing Sing
Louis Armstrong Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
To call my own
Must be someone who's all alone
Just a little girl to fall in love with me, ooh, yeah
Want a little girl
She may not look like the picture in a storybook
But if she can cook
She don't have to wave her hair
Or dress in fancy clothes
Ooh, and I wouldn't even care
If she didn't wear second hose, ohh, yes
Want a little girl to love a lot
I'd give anything that I've got
For a little girl
Oh, to fall in love with me
Louis Armstrong's song I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues is all about finding the love of his life in the form of a little girl. The opening lines of the song are about finding a girl that he can call his own, a girl who is all alone, and who he can fall in love with. The desire for companionship, the need to have someone to love and share his life with – these are the themes that run through this song.
The lyrics go on to describe Louis's ideal girl. She may not be the most beautiful girl in the world, but if she can cook, that would be enough for him. He doesn't care about fancy clothes or fancy hair, but all he wants is for the girl to love him back. He's willing to give up everything that he has just to be with her.
The song is about love and companionship, but it's also about the struggles that come with being alone. Louis is a man who has the right to sing the blues because of the pain and hardship that he has faced in his life. However, he believes that he has the right to sing the blues because he knows that someday he will find the girl of his dreams.
Line by Line Meaning
Ooh, I want a little girl
I desire a particular type of woman to be in a relationship with
To call my own
I want to have an exclusive relationship with this woman
Must be someone who's all alone
She should not be in a relationship already
Just a little girl to fall in love with me, ooh, yeah
I want her to fall in love with me too, no matter how young she may seem
Want a little girl
I want a specific type of woman
She may not look like the picture in a storybook
I don't care if she doesn't look perfect
But if she can cook
However, it is important that she knows how to cook
She'll suit me [Incomprehensible]
If she can cook, then she'll be perfect for me
She don't have to wave her hair
I don't care if she doesn't have perfect hair
Or dress in fancy clothes
I don't need her to dress fancy
Ooh, and I wouldn't even care
I really wouldn't care
If she didn't wear second hose, ohh, yes
I don't need her to wear unnecessary lingerie
Want a little girl to love a lot
I want to love and cherish this woman
I'd give anything that I've got
I am willing to sacrifice anything for this woman
For a little girl
For a specific type of woman
Oh, to fall in love with me
To reciprocate my love for her
Lyrics © S.A. MUSIC, BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Songtrust Ave, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: HAROLD ARLEN, TED KOEHLER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@colt4667
I'm only 16 and I like this music.
I'm 14 and I like this music.
I'm 4 and I like this music.
I'm 3 months old and I like this music.
I'm 2 days old and I like this music.
I'm 2 hours old and I like this music.
I'm still a fetus and I like this music.
I'm an embryo and I like this music.
I'm still an egg cell and I like this music.
I'm a strand of DNA and I like this music.
I'm a Carbon atom (not yet part of a DNA strand) and I like this music.
I'm a Neutron (soon to be part of a Carbon atom) and I like this music.
I'm still a Quark and I like this music.
@MeA-aSchwalbe
85 years later and I'm still waiting for them to sing.
@MichaelDelugg
Oh man, they ARE singin’!
@victorm.photovic9983
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@patopotato9988
@@grahamdalbymusic Dang.. had no idea!
@rogal2358
Man, u don't need to wait more, thier instruments are singing
@hmackie6823
good 1
@biskit460
Can you imagine hearing this song for the first time when it came out?
@mabel8179
Yes people would've LOVED it and been so excited! In fact there was a British female musician named Ivy Benson whose family wanted her to be a classical musician but then she heard Benny Goodman and that was IT. She became a bandleader for an all female dance/jazz band.
@evenvega3728
I'd flip out!!
@shannahuffman4655
I would be going crazy .. it's such a cool song