A Career Closing Louis Armstrong Recording Resurfaces With a Feel Good Story
BBC TV show July 2, 1968 first aired Sept. 22, 1968
In need of a feel good story? Here it is. There's even a hi-fi system tie in. The story as told in the booklet by Ricky Riccardi, Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum (and author of three Armstrong biographies) begins almost a year after this BBC performance with Louis at home recuperating from two hospital stays playing for guests his new Tandberg reel to reel tape recorders his wife Lucille had installed as a surprise while he was away.
That alone is a feel good story for any audiophile who's snuck gear into the house, but it gets better. However, you'll have to get the record to read it all. Sadly, Louis was gone two years later, preferring to die on stage if necessary to keep playing. He didn't quite go that way but it was close. Following a two shows a night March 1971 Waldorf Astoria appearance during which he needed between show oxygen, Armstrong suffered a heart attack.
The mailed promo presentation
Much of this material had been released on a Brunswick LP Louis Armstrong's Greatest Hits Recorded Live (for which he received a producing credit) that he promoted on television before the Waldorf appearance, so here it is again with a few additions, including a wonderful "Blueberry Hill."
Look, this is late crowd pleasing, entertainer Louis that includes "Hello Dolly" and "Mame", "Mack the Knife", "When the Saints Go Marching In" and of course "What a Wonderful World", which was a big hit at the time and the studio crowd eats it up and enjoys listening as much as Louis and the All-Star band (Tyree Glenn, Joe Myranyi, Marty Napoleon, Buddy Catlett and Danny Barcelona) enjoys playing it for them. His voice sounds great and he's having a great time performing entertainment and riding new career popularity heights just around the time Miles was doing Miles In the Sky.
You could say this is hopelessly corny stuff, but it was a time of great stress in the world and Louis' antidote worked then and his joyful performance works now, though "What a Wonderful World" is a stretch!
Kevin Reeves, whose recent lacquer cuts for the "Verve By Request" were universally reviled did the transferring, mixing and mastering at East Iris Studios in Nashville. The grooves here looked more "lively" than those earlier Verves and hallelujah! This is a good cut that sounds as vibrant and lively as the Qobuz stream.
The booklet accompanying the record duplicated the box pictured above so you get a facsimile of Louis' masking tape writing and Ricky Riccardi's entertaining notes. Play, place at the end of your Armstrong record collection and even if you don't play it again (but you probably will) call it a pleasing end cap to a remarkable recorded career. What a wonderful man!
