- published: 12 Jul 2009
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HIDDEN ERROR: Usage of "Spouse" is not recognized
Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer who became one of the pivotal and most influential figures in jazz music. His career spanned from the 1920s to the 1960s, covering many different eras of jazz.
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.
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 extremely 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 which were highly restricted for black men of his era.
HIDDEN ERROR: Usage of "death_age" is not recognized
Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice. Guthrie's best-known work was his debut piece "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", a satirical talking blues song about 18 minutes in length that has since become a Thanksgiving anthem, and his lone top-40 hit was a cover of Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans." His song "Massachusetts" was named the official folk song of the state in which he has lived most of his adult life. Guthrie has also made several acting appearances over the course of his life, and he has also fathered four children who have likewise gone on to careers as musicians.
Arlo Guthrie was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of folk singer and composer Woody Guthrie and his wife Marjorie Mazia Guthrie. His sister is record producer Nora Guthrie. His mother was a one-time professional dancer with the Martha Graham Company and founder of the Committee to Combat Huntington's disease, the disease that took Woody's life in 1967. His father was from a Protestant family and his mother was Jewish. His maternal grandmother was renowned Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt.
Well, I went down to Old Joe's Barroom
Down on the corner by the square
They were serving drinks as usual
Oh, the usual crowd was there
In the corner sat Big Joe McKenzie
His eyes were blood shot red
And as he turned to address the crowd around him
These were the very words that he said:
Well I went down to St James Infirmary
To see my baby there
She was laid out on that long white table
So cold, so pale, so fair
Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Where ever she may be
Let her search that whole wide world over
Never find a man as sweet as me
She'll never find a man as sweet as me
When I die, won't you bury me in my high top Stetson hat
Put a twenty dollar gold piece on my watch hand
So the gang'll know I died standing pat
I want six crapshooters for pallbearers
Pretty gals sing me a song
I want a jazz band on my hearse wagon
To raise Hell as we roll 'long
Won't you roll out that rubber tire hack
Thirteen men go down to that old graveyard
There's only twelve of them men coming back
Now that you heard my story
Have another shot of the booze
Anything anybody should ask
I got the St James Infirmary blues