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.
Yours and Mine
Louis Armstrong Lyrics
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Are yours and mine
The rainbows in the sky
Are yours and mine
The song of springtime
The lullaby of the fall
The sunshine of summertime
The moon above
Is yours and mine
Mama, the right to fall in love
Is yours and mine
The hopes of finding the dream
Our heart's desire
All this is
Yours and mine
Louis Armstrong's hit song "Yours and Mine" speaks about the beauty of the world we live in and how everything that is beautiful, from stars and rainbows to sunshine and moonlight, belongs to us all. The song highlights the fact that no matter who we are, what we do, or where we come from, we all have a right to enjoy the beauty of the world and to fall in love. The song's lyrics touch on the universal human desire to find happiness and fulfillment in life.
The first verse of the song talks about how the stars that shine and the rainbows in the sky are for everyone to enjoy. The second verse mentions how the song of spring, the lullaby of the fall, and the sunshine of summertime belong to everyone. The third verse talks about how the moon and the right to fall in love are also for all of us. The final verse speaks about hopes and dreams being something that we all share, regardless of our differences.
Line by Line Meaning
The stars that shine
The stars that are shining in the sky belong to both you and me
Are yours and mine
They are ours to enjoy together
The rainbows in the sky
The colorful arches that appear in the sky after rain are both of ours
Are yours and mine
We can both see the same beauty in the world and it belongs to both of us
The song of springtime
The cheerful melodies that spring brings are ours to listen to and enjoy
The lullaby of the fall
The soothing sounds of autumn are also ours to appreciate
The sunshine of summertime
The warmth and brightness of summer belongs to both of us
Belong to us all
We share these natural gifts together
The moon above
The moon that illuminates the night for us
Is yours and mine
It belongs to us both, as we both can see and appreciate it
Mama, the right to fall in love
The freedom to love another person
Is yours and mine
We both have the right to experience the love we desire
The hopes of finding the dream
The aspirations of achieving our goals and desires
Our heart's desire
The things we truly want in our heart
All this is
All of the things mentioned above
Yours and mine
Belongs to and is shared between us
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Spirit Music Group
Written by: CHRIS BURKE-GAFFNEY, KYLE RIABKO
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Anonymous
on What A Wonderful World
What A Wonderful World - Casey Abrams - Lyrics
I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Singing how do you do
They're really singing
I love you
I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They'll learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Musical Interlude
The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Singing how do you do
They're really singing
I love you
I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They goin’ learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I think to myself
What a wonderful world