Presented by Narlins and Company. Come experience the cultural community of Narlins. Dear
sir, thank you for your letter. I can understand why you're confused about
my nickname, because well, I have so many. Dream everybody in New
Orleans at at least one by saying Hello Gate or Hello face who had slippers?
And sweet child and Bowhog, Oh the horsh they had the best nicknames.
There was a flaming Mami, Bucktooth, Arena Tenderloin, Selma gold Tooth.
Gus said me, I had a bushel of names. I was sat
your mouth, which later became Sachmo and Gate differ Daddy. I go by
Lewis. The white folks, and only the white folks they call me Louis.
But the folks who know me best the longest. To them, I'm
Pops, red Beans and Rice Lely Yours Lewis Songs, Strong Pops. This
is part one of Pops Na Wilson Is Pops The Remarkable Story of Jazz legend
Lewis Armstrong, a six part audio experience from Drop Biscuit Studios. They forget
about you, you know, if you're not in their eyes and their ears
blowing your horn and singing all the time. This was the new Port Jazz
Festival. I was seventy. The doctor said, no more blowing that horn,
satch bow. I wanted to swing that on so bad, and I
was thin, sickly week not a breath, but I was still Lewis armstrong,
and I was gonna take that stage. He wanted me to just walk
out and stand in the shine of a spotlight by it. You gotta be
getting me, I said, I'm I died on the horizon. What if
they don't recognize me? What if what if nobody applaud what if what if
they just don't remember? Pops? Straighten my bow tie? Yeah, I
don't do it. Room was dark. I walked. I was in a
tiny beam of light, standing there, a flea on the acid, A
great, big stage seemed like forever. And then thank you, thank y'all,
Thank you lad and gentlemen, thank yall. I stood up straight.
I waved to smile, that big, bad smile that in I felt it
all the way down to my toes. All my life, singing and blowing
just to make people happy, and here they were. How sweet it was.
Less than a year I would take my very last breath. But after
tonight I tell you this, I can die happy. How did I get
to this place? You wouldn't believe it if I told you. He comes
from honky tonks and speakeasies. It's got magic, voodoo, the Lord and
reefer red beans and rice, light and darkness and triumph. Hard to believe
because it's so impossible, but it's all true. Every word. That poor
boy from the district travels around the world today blowing a horn, and people
everywhere smile and applaud news around the world the year nineteen sixty, preaching the
gospel of New Orleans jazz to every corner of the world. It's such moment.
Lewis Armstrong Pops, as he likes to be called, one of the
foundational figures in modern jazz. Here he is being carried in royal style during
his tour of the African Congo. I always say a note is a note
in any language. Reports say Armstrong's presence actually stopped a war East Catherin fighting
the student Nige and we started playing. Well, they all stopped fighting,
sat together, rivals on the shoulders, having a granddah, and then we
left and as jud started up again, the most important figure in twentieth century
jazz, the first jazz man to appear on the cover of Time, born
in the era of Jim Crow. He's the first African American who have featured
billing in a Hollywood movie, the first to host a sponsored national radio broadcast,
and the first who have his contracts specified that he would play no hotel
that would not accept him as a guest man. And you have to start
New Orleans around nineteen hundred, I said around nineteen hundred, because I was
never good with years. You know. Uh got town though, New Orleans
swede and spicy as good old Jummalaiah. The smells, the jasmine, the
gardenias and magnolia. The block where I was born is the most crowded street
you ever saw, Jackie. Folks of all sorts of church people, hustlers,
gamblers, prostitutes, chief pimps, thieves, and lots of jildren.
My grandma Josephine spent the best days of her life raising me, and I
was full of pissing vinegar. Boyer, I'm gonna give you a good licking,
you tell me, and then I'd have to go to the big tree
in the yard lives for the tears to find a branch big enough to suit
her, but not big enough to do much damage to my ass. Well
I had handed a branch, and she just laugh and laugh. Your sins
are bigger than that branch. Boy. She knew all about sins and whoopings
from her younger days. See she was a slave. Why do I need
to change my clothes? Grandma? The voodoo case? She said, it's
potion, see, and if one's on your clothes, that's it. And
don't lose track of any hairs or a finger down a bit seeing in the
wrong hands, you will be under respect. One day I'll watched my grandmother
got the grave of the queen of Voodoo, Mariela. Vote Grandma, why
did you put a dime on the tune? Well, Lewis, once we
get out of sight, the voodoo queen will rise from the dead and snatch
it away. Well, I'll never looked back, I'll tell you that.
And I never returned to the doom neither. But to this day I wonder
as a dead voodoo queen gonna do with a whole hatful of dimes. Those
days, music was everyone happen, every day, every corner, every honky
tonk, every festival, every funeral. Why, my Grandma Josephine used to
tell me, somebody's enjoyed the music so much they come back to life,
sit right up on the slide. That's what happened to old brother Jones,
Missus Jones. She was crying something fist. She touched his forehead, and
she thought warm for a corpse, No matter, she said, drying her
eyes, How the cold he going out of here tomorrow. My mama,
boy, she had nothing. She came from nothing. Boy or boy,
was she something. Everybody from the church folks to the lowest gave her the
greatest respect. She was glad to say hello to anybody, no matter who
it was. But she didn't have. She did without. She never envied
no one or anything they may have. She held her head high always.
I loved her for that. My mama was fifteen when I came along.
When the night I was born, she used to tell me that there was
a big shooting scrape in an alley. It was the fourth of July and
folks were celebrating with with shotguns, pistols, whatever weapon they could fine makes
a noise. She told me somebody got killed that night. One man has
to die to make room for another to be born. She said it was
making space for me. That night and into the world I came to the
sound of shotguns and hollowing still Hollerwen died this day. Now, my mama.
Man, she didn't know my daddy too well. Neither did I.
He never had time to tell me nothing out. They're too busy chasing chippies.
When you could find him, man, blow ups came and went sword
of my pappe. A few years later I heard tell that they were together
again. And meanwhile I was sent to live with my grandmother. My Joseph
feed sounds like my daddy up and left again, and Mayan was sick,
awful sick. His man took me to see her take care of us best
I could. At age five or six. My Mama's placing story forelle,
Now look at him one room to day. You call it a shock,
if you called it home mama, if you looked up at me like it
was the first time she ever saw me, this bright smile, little face.
Though he grabbed my hand real tight. I'm so sorry, she said,
I'm so sorry. I've not done what I should by you. My
Mama's gonna make it up. I remember she was crying. I was crying
a lot in those days. She sent me over the rampart street bout fifty
cents of meat, bread, red beans and rice. Oh I love that
get old home cooking. This is where it would take to make her well
again. Zee. I mean I could taste it as I tell you about
it right now. You know all my life. I sign my letters red
beans and rice, Lear's Lewis arms jaw. That's where I got it.
Room. Well, my mama got better and moved me back in Willie.
My daddy was backed by that for a while. At least and low and
behold. I had a sister, Three of us in one room. It
would happen all hours, day and night. The knocking me and my little
sister. I called up, Mama, Lucy, we stay out of the
way when the strangers came. This is my stepfather had a lot of stepfathers
back then. Or they come and go a lot. They spend time with
Mayan in her bed, and then they leave. Well, I couldn't keep
track of them. You know, must have been dozens. I mean,
all I had to do was turn my back and a new pappy would appear.
Mama said she was making ends. Meet me and Mama Lucy. We
would hear the noises and then we cover our ears in one room, all
three of us. I'm gonna go to sleep, Mama Lucy. It was
my voice time on the trolley, my voice ride. I stepped on my
Mama was right behind me. I walked up to the front and sat down.
But where was mama? Mama, why are you come here? Boy?
Sit where you belong? What was she doing back there? Funny spots
up front? I thought she was kidding me, But when she yanked me
out of my seat dragged me to the back, it was a sign over
those seats up front seat. I was too young to read it. Mama,
what does that sign say? Shut your mouth, you little food?
She said later she told me to sign over the front seats. It's only
tell me a story, Mama, tell me about the old days. If
you didn't want to tell me, I made her. The story was about
my uncle, but it could have been about any of us. Back in
town. Once upon a time, my uncle he was property, and the
white folks could do what they want with their property. Or they love that
shotguns and and the whiskey. You get so damn drunk, they go out
of their minds. And they were out of their minds. It's hunting time,
nigga hunting time. Any nigga lord has mercy on this nigga, they
shoot him down like a dog. And then they go home to their wives
and their children. Get some good night, go to sleep, Just another
night, just another night. You tell me, don't cry, Mama.
I'm so sorry. I guess you're wondering about my daddy, you and me
both. He was gone always, even when he wasn't. He was the
man Mama told us was our father, that's all. Eventually you had other
children with other women. He never married. My mama never support to us
ever be and my sister Mama Lucy, we were bastards from the start.
My father gave me nothing, and that's what I would give him back all
my life. Nothing. My mama had to do her little hustle in the
White Force yard to keep food on our table. I blame my daddy for
that, and who else blame my daddy for a lot of things. Blamed
him, my mama cried. I blamed him when I dig and dig through
trash just to find potatoes and onions, masspoiled chickens and turkeys. Whatever I
found, maybe the restaurant would buy it. Thank you, sir, thank
you. My mama would say, son, you got a chance, don't
you waste it. I want, Mama, I want today. You have
rap battles. See two rappers go ahead to head and all the picks to
winter. Well, when I was a boy, band would do the same
thing, but they did it hotter, and nobody knew how to swing a
battle and lay on the other band better than mister Buddy bold didn't boy,
what a sound he had stuff a legend. Every place was jumping when Buddy
bolden blue. He was the blowing his man since Gabriel. But see,
Buddy didn't just win the audience, he won the ladies. They say he
had four women living with him in the same house at the same time.
I mean, you see him walking down the street, one carrying his handkerchief,
one his watch, one is on, one ready to carry whatever was
left. The ladies at the shows were raped, changing the handkerchiefs, seem
seal him with something sweet and then toss him at Buddy while he was playing
Don't hit me in the head. Woman I can see you from here.
Yes, that boy could make the ladies jump out the windows, smiling all
the way down. Ah. Now that boy, he had everything, But
something happened, started talking to himself, acting crazy. You got arrested.
Even after he got out, he didn't seem not to love his horn no
more. Everybody was out together him, he say, stayed inside, watching
the world through the slats, some two bit blinds, and the world started
forgetting about him. M They put him away in East Louisiana State Hospital for
the Insane. Spent the rest of his life there staring out at a world
which had moved right by Buddy bolden Well. I didn't get into much trouble
as a boy until that day, and nineteen twelve, last day of the
year, New Year's Eve took all. I had to open up that chest,
my mama's would chest. I knew what was in there. Tonight was
a night to play with it. One of my pappets kept a gun in
that chest there. It is lots of boys at cap pustols in those days.
This was better some toys six shoot to see. So I loaded it
with blanks and me and my friends went walking down the street saying, like
we always did, that was across the street. Go get him dipping.
My friend said, so for my pappage evolver from my bosom, raised my
arm in the air, let her go. Well that get across the street.
Was old, frightened, he cut out, was out of sight like
a jack rabbit. Well, my friends started. This was the funniest thing
in the world. So they said, do it again. Did do it
again. I reloaded my gun, raised it over my head again. That's
when I felt two strong arms about my shoulder. It was cold that night,
but I broke out into a sweat that was even colder. I watched
my friend's cutting run. Hey, where y'all going? I turned around to
see a tall white detective, who've been watching me? Shoot that gun?
Please, mister, don't arrest me. Please let me go back to my
mom. I won't do it no more. Well, he was having none
of that. Now, you might think being locked up was a bad thing,
and you know, I suppose it is. But I'll tell you something.
You wouldn't be hearing me today if I hadn't shot off that gun and
spent the next few years of reform school. And I mean it. It
was called the colored Waist Home for boys. We'd get up with the bugle,
spend the day of drilling with gooden rifles in buildings learning skills, and
by nine o'clock shop we hit the hay. I could still smell the honeysuckle
trees in the evening the air. You couldn't run away from the Waist Home.
Everybody got caught and was back within a week. One night, while
we were all asleep, the boy tied together by a dozen sheets, he
greased his body to slide through the wooden bars. He slowly lowered himself down
to the ground and disappeared. Now in the morning, when the keeper's discovered
he was missing, that had one thing to say, he'll be back soon,
And you know what he was. The months fast and I had my
mindset on one thing, and one thing only. The Waves Home had its
own brass band. Oh the sounds that band made and the fun that those
boys had. Yeah, every night I would fall asleep dreaming about playing in
that band. But would they ever have me? I mean, I was
raising such a bad company and I had to be voiceless. And that's what
I thought, Maybe that's what they thought. Every day I had watched the
band player sitting on a rock a few yards away from the music, and
I closed my eyes. I could feel it deep in my soul. Music
right. And the band's director, a man named mister Peter Davis, would
watch me, and one day I guess he had quite enough say. Boy,
he was calling out to me, hurt me, su yes, you
have you ever played in the band? No shirt? I said, why
don't you take this old bugle and see what you can do with it.
Well, I wasn't accustomed to kindness like that. I think I was too
stim it to say no. And that old bugle was the most beautiful thing
in the world. I'd blow it all day long. By the summer of
nineteen thirteen, I wasn't just with the band. I had become the voice
chair in the cornet that place. Boy, I tell you, you change
my life. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Me and
music. We got married at that home. See, every time I close
my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of
good old New Orleans. Every time gave me something to live for. And
now now it's free, free to blow my horn, free to discover whiskey,
and women, not necessarily in that order, free to become a man.
If the hustlers and the horse don't kill my voice, that's next time
on Pops. This has been part one of Pops. Rina Wilson is Pops.
Pops is distributed by Drop Biscuit Studios, Active producer Mike Agovino. Pops
is written by Mark Ramsey, with sound design and production by Jeff Schmidt.
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