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around the world. That's such Mode. Lewis Armstrong, waving to adoring fans.
Yes, such Mode shaped everything that jazz has become all who follow in
his footsteps. So I'm a tremendous debt. Does he approach his age fifty
he has lost none of his boundless energy, his remarkable ability to delight audiences
worldwide. What is jazz anyway? Man? If you got to ask,
you'll never get to know. In my day, jazz was hip hop.
See and just like in the world of hip hop, along came new faces
and new voices. Them is not enough to do the work and play the
music. They also need to take the old time adown in his wake.
A new generation of musicians. Coleman Hawkins pops his playing just like he did
when he was twenty years old. He isn't going any place musically, Myles
Davis, I ain't the way he laughed prints for the audience. I know
why he does it to late money. He likes that in the clown Dizzy
Gola speak, He's too popular to be good, too popular to be good.
It's better than too good to be popular, busy. He also said
I had a plantation image. Plantation image. Man, My music has brought
joy to folks white and black. Isn't that what breaking down barriers means.
These young cats ain't want to carve everyone else because they're so full of malice.
Lighten up, smoke some of this. The best way to respond to
haters is with a smile. That's why I printed up thousands of cards photos
of me sitting on a toilet with my drawers around my knees and a big
smile on my face. And at the bottom, I rope Satchmo says,
leave it all behind you. This is part six of Pops, the final
part. Reno Wilson is Pops The Remarkable story of jazz legend Lewis Armstrong,
a six part audio experience from Drop Biscuit Studios. We was on the road
more than three hundred nights a year. I wasn't alive unless I was on
that stage somewhere. See here's a typical night backstage. I'm in my underwear
with a white handkerchief wrapped around my head. There's two nuns in the room,
some fancy street all between them. A blind man over there, another
cat just out of the big house over there, maybe a rabbi, maybe
a priest, maybe a judge, all saying hey and getting friendly and not
seeing his repeated three hundred times. So yeah, say, y'all know,
I was just in the Glenn Miller story with Jimmy Stewart right. Well,
Jimmy's lips was getting sore blowing that tromp bone. So he says, Bops,
what do I do to prevent sore lips? Can I tell him?
Dad, when you go home tonight, half your old ladies sit on your
face next morning. He looks me square in the eye, well, and
he gives me a big thumbs up. Not every gig was so funny.
We was playing in Knoxville, Tennessee. That's to segregated South, thousand whites,
thousand blacks and a line down in the middle. That's all right,
folks, So on it the phone. The White Citizens Council, that's what
they were called. They didn't like white and black folks under the same roof.
See me and the boys. We go all over the South, and
our bus most places we went. We couldn't eat, we couldn't sit,
we couldn't sleep. We couldn't use the bathroom. We could only go on
that stage and play white folks. Black folks didn't matter. Once the lights
went up and the music started, the only color was music. Now one
of these gigs I was in my hotel watching TV was the news. I've
seen a lot of cruelty in my day, but this was a riot.
In Little Rock, Arkansas. Schools were segregated, and the governor wanted to
keep it that way. He called in the National Guard to keep the races
apart. I saw dozens of little black kids walking to school, fear on
their faces, surrounded by angry white folks. I saw white man spit in
the face of a frightened, defenseless black girl, a crown of white people
behind the threatening How can I stand? How can I stand this? How
can I get on stage tonight and smiling, blowing life a bow when this
is how my people are being treated. It's getting so bad. A colored
man hasn't got any country. I took my complaint right to the top,
and since the Lord Almighty had no room on his calendar to meet with me
on this fine Washington, DC afternoon, I met with the next best thing,
mister Armstrong. The President will see you now, mister President, President
Eisenhower, it's good to meet you, sir, Thank you, sir,
I appreciate that. Now, about why I came here today, Sir,
I don't think you've ever been a poor black child, scared of the world,
scared of your next breath, scared of white people who would do you
harm. I can't make you feel what that's like. I mean, nobody
can. I can only tell you from the bottom of my heart, that
is wrong. Now, the President, he was looking square at me down
in Little Rock, Arkansas. The governor has decided that little white and black
kids shouldn't line together. He's called in the National Guard to keep the peace.
But they don't prevent the threats and the intimidation, and the name calling,
and the fear and the spit on the face of a little colored girl.
Now, mister President, your President, of all the people right,
the high and the low, the white and the colored, the huddled masses
joining to be free, sir, These young children are joining to be free.
Will you turn your back on them? President Eisenhower, he was no
longer look at me in the eye. He was looking down. I think
in that moment, he was ashamed that day. He said he would dispatch
federal troops to Arkansas. They would enforce integration. They would keep those colored
kids safe, give them a chest to lay in side by side with white
kids. Equal, not separate. Daddy, if you decide to walk into
the schools with the little colored kids, take me along. God bless you,
dear. Little me and the boys have traveled all over the wild,
but I found my roots in Africa after so much strife back home. Here
I am. I'm black man in a black land. Last night we performed
to one hundred thousand fans, and tell me, women left their kitchens with
babies on their backs to see me. From ditch diggers to captain fancy suits.
There they were shoulder his shoulder. There were seventy tribal chiefs and wild
kettle drugs, and there I was blowing my horn with their beat. The
cameras from CBS we're tagging along too. The reporter said, we were conquering
the world with a melody and a grid. The house read is that red
beans and arras the yours. Lewis news around the world, planes, trains,
automobiles. Lewis Armstrong continues his tour of the world. Every night,
another destination and another show. It's an exhausting schedule. But somehow Sachemo keeps
standing, and so do he adoring fans. I'll be fine, I'll be
fine. Wasn't how I wanted to spend that night. Wasn't how I wanted
to spend any night. The doctor, he said I had pneumonia. That's
what he said. Nobody wanted to admit. It was a heart attack.
Piece of all me. But nothing was quite the same after that, nothing
but my work schedule, which was full as ever, TV and records and
shows. But I was tired a lot. I was late more than ever,
and for the first time in my life, I was feeling old.
Dear little I tore us back on this time the buses in Connecticut Bay.
Driver, I need to stop and take me at pe Yeah, stop at
this restaurant here, excuse me, sir, Can I use your restroom?
Little? This man it's white man in this restaurant full of white folks.
He just stared at me for the longest time day. Can I use your
toilet? He just shook his head. No. Here, I am America's
ambassador to the world, famous everywhere a star of television, movies, and
music. And I can't take a piss in a toilet in Connecticut because the
color of my skin. All my life, I've given everything I had to
make people happy. In all my life, I've been torned away from hotels
and restaurants and toilets. When it comes to time when you just say enough,
mister, you can give me the either your toilet right now, Well,
I'm gonna drop my drugs right here and piss all over your counter and
frond of all these fine people. Well, little I got my key,
and I got to tell you, never has a key in my hand felt
so good. I sweated and strutted and blew my horn for almost seventy years
for that damn key. At today, I was going to use it,
just a simple, little silly key man, But I could have kissed it
red beans and rice for yours. Lewis. Yeah, come in. What
a new song? Just a demo? You don't even know if it'll be
released? Well, is it even worthing? What's it called? Hello Dollar
from some new music who hasn't even opened yet? Well, okay, if
you say so, boss. That was my manager, And maybe he was
right about that song. It's a fucking hit, he said after I recorded
it. And what happened next It was amazing. Now, this was a
time when the music charts belonged to the Beatles. Right, but guess what
song made it to number one with a bullet? That's right, Hello Dollard.
Now me and the boys, we had missed all the hooplah. We
were doing a gig in Coerto Rico. In the office called down to saying
it's a huge hit. Play Hello Dolly. Everyone wants to hear Hello Dollar
guys. Any of you guys remember this damn tune? Nope, none of
us. Somewhere in Puerto Rico, there must be the sheet music for the
songs that the boys could learn it. Damn Well, long story short,
we got the music and learned the song. We played it that very night,
and eight Curton calls later, we decided they were right, Hello Dolly
is a fucking hit. Yeah? What now? What another song? Ballad?
Strings? At all? You don't want me to play? Harn you
sing? And I liked this song? Tell you what I'll do it for
scale and I did. Maybe I was too anxious, what with the Hello
Dolly selling millions of records, thinking everything would be a huge hit now.
But this song, as much as I liked it, never caught fire in
America, But in England and other countries was at the top of the charts.
Most folks in America never even hoid this song, not till it was
in the soundtrack of a movie twenty years later. That movie was Good Morning
Vietnam, and the song was what a wonderful oil. I must have done
something right, because today every man or woman and child of every color,
in almost every country, they all know that's all. How about that now?
Yeah, this was just one of those nights where sleep just refused to
come. I stared at the clock most of the night. The doctor he
told me to stop blowing my horn. I said to him, dark,
you don't understand my whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit,
is to blow that horn. I've got to do it. I was fresh
out of the hospital another heart attack, but I still wanted to work.
Me and the boys. We were about to go into rehearsal for another gig,
you know, we were looking forward to it. There I was staring
at the clock five thirty in the morning, July sixth, nineteen seventy one,
and that's when my heart gave up. Wasn't last time I died in
my sleep? That's what they said. Close enough, close enough, Dear
little folks think we don't know what happens in this world after we're gone,
But they're wrong. That's what spirit is. You know, part of us
that's still here after the rest of us. Isn't. You came out of
retirement just to play in a concert on television, a tribute to me.
I can't tell you how much that means to me. My hot miss little
playing the piano, just like the old days for me. You had a
massive heart attack that day. Did you know that they tried to revive you,
the doctors did They tried to keep you alive. You died that day,
Little, Oh good on money. I'm so sorry. You always did
give more than you got, Little. I guess that's what made me love
you so much. True, this is my last letter. I know I'll
be seeing you around red Beans and rightfully yours. Lewis had a Newport Jazz
festival. Listen to that crowd singing they ain't forgot old pops after all.
Well power, This is where you and I began and this is where the
story ends. One bright light and to see her smiling faces, that's something
to live for. That's something that lives forever. I was a young boy
living in the Colored Waves home in the band. They let us out to
play picnics, and there was one I'll never forget. We played, and
then these nice folks they invited us to eat. Now, the food we
had at the home was playing and simple, white beans, bread, molasses.
But here that this picnic wore ham and fried chicken wings, but potato
bar pigtails and greens, biscuits and pecan butter. I've never seen such a
feast. I ate until my pants were busting out the buttons. Then I
wandered off by myself. This swamp was so cool that us hanging over the
branches. That's when the cicada stopped singing. It was so quiet. I
closed my eyes and opened my ears. In that silence, I hid freedom.
I saw skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day,
the dark sacred night. I saw my mama. I'm so proud of
you, boy, Oh mama. I miss your red beans and rice.
I miss you every day. You look joyful, full, of joy.
I saw Papa Joe geting Oliver look at the shop, swinging out fear some
horn in his He said nine notes again. My whole life has been happiness.
Thing's been wrong, sure, bad tins, rotten up, but I
didn't plan anything. Life was there for me and I accepted it. I
smelled the magnolia, I hear the music that goes right through me. It
could never be enough music in the world. Papa Joe, you look's right
at me. Welcome Pops. We've been waiting for you. The colors of
the rainbow so pretty in the sky. Oh little it sounds so sweet on
that piano, and that little black boy with a big, beautiful smile,
his hands full the cold as his friends shaking hands, saying how do you
do? They're really saying, I love you life, whatever came out,
it's been beautiful to me. I didn't wish for anything I didn't get,
and I got pretty near everything I wanted. You know what perfection is,
it's never wanting to be anything more than you are. Mamma, would you
like to dance? Come on, mamma, dance with me. So I
think to myself, what a wonderful world. Yes, I think to myself,
what a wonderful this has been. Part six, the final chapter of
Pops. Rino Wilson is Pops. Pops is distributed by Drop Biscuit Studios Executive
producer Mike Agavino. Hops is written by Mark Ramsey, with sound design and
production by Jeff Schmidt. Please subscribe to Pops on iTunes, Spotify, drop
uskot studios dot com, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like
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