July 16, 1930: Jimmie Rodgers Meets Louis (and Lil) Armstrong

If they ever posed for a picture together,

Google Images doesn't have it.

July 16, 1930: "Standing On the Corner," also known as "Blue Yodel #9," is recorded in Los Angeles. It's early proof that "country music," music for poor rural white people, and "the blues," music for poor rural black people, not only can go together, but it's natural for them to do so.

The lead singer is Jimmie Rodgers, a country singer known as "The Singing Brakeman," for his earlier job on a railroad. The Mississippi native was known for his yodeling, and for his wise-guy attitude, of which this song has plenty.

Not billed on the RCA Victor record label were the song's trumpeter and its pianist. It wasn't because they were both black, and Rodgers was white, and Jim Crow was still in effect -- although that may explain why the song was recorded in Southern California, and not in the South. No, the trumpeter and the pianist were not billed because they were signed to Okeh Records, which was then owned by Columbia Records, and thus affiliated with CBS, arch-rival to NBC, which was owned by RCA.

The trumpeter was Louis Armstrong. The pianist was his wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong. Yes, the man called "The Father of Country Music" made a record with the King and Queen of Jazz.

According to Thomas Brothers, who wrote a biography of Louis, the irregular blues form along with the irregular phrases used by Jimmie frequently threw him off, until he reached his own solo chorus, where he stuck to a regular 12 bar blues form.

In 1970, 40 years later, and with not much longer to live, Armstrong appeared on The Johnny Cash Show, and played while Cash sang the song.

By that point, Ray Charles had released a couple of big-selling albums of his take on country music, and Charlie Pride had been the 1st black singer to really make it in the genre. A few have followed, including Darius Rucker, who left his rock band Hootie & The Blowfish to sing country. In 2019, Lil Nas X released "Old Town Road," a duet with Billy Ray Cyrus, and it became the biggest song of the year, reminding everyone that black people singing country music was not only possible, but should be encouraged.

UPDATE: In 2024, Beyoncé, a native of Houston, released "Texas Hold 'Em," an obvious country song, and hit Number 1, triggering a lot of racists.

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July 16, 1930 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns, 2-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Ed Wells went the distance for the win. He did his best pitching in the 1929-31 period when the Yankees were in transition, and the Philadelphia Athletics won the American League Pennant. He did pitch for them in their title-winning season of 1932, but did not appear in the World Series.

Babe Ruth did not play. Lou Gehrig went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Part of the aforementioned transition is that, following the sale of Bob Meusel to the Cincinnati Reds, they didn't have a star left fielder again until Charlie Keller in 1939. For this game, Earle Combs, normally in center field, moved over to left, Harry Rice was in center, and Sammy Byrd, known as "Babe Ruth's Legs" for filling in for him for defensive purposes so many times, played the whole game in right. Rice hit a home run.

* The New York Giants lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 8-1 at the Polo Grounds. Bill Terry went 0-for-3 with a walk. Mel Ott went 1-for-4.

* A doubleheader was split at Ebbets Field. The Brooklyn Dodgers -- or the Brooklyn Robins, as they were known while Wilbert Robinson was their manager, from 1914 to 1931 -- lost the opener to the Chicago Cubs, 6-4. They won the nightcap, 5-3.

* A doubleheader was split at Braves Field in Boston. The Boston Braves won the 1st game, 4-3. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the 2nd game, 9-5.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-5 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

* A doubleheader was split at League Park in Cleveland. The Washington Senators won the 1st game, 10-4. The Cleveland Indians won the 2nd game, 13-6.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 3-2 at Navin Field in Detroit. (That ballpark was later renamed Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium.)

* And the Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 14-7 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The A's Hall-of-Famers all contributed. Lefty Grove started on the mound, and got a hit, but, with the A's already leading 9-3, manager Connie Mack pinch-hit for him in the top of the 3rd. Mickey Cochrane and Al Simmons each went 2-for-5 with an RBI. Jimmie Foxx went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. But the biggest hitter on this day was not a Hall-of-Famer: Bing Miller went 4-for-5 with 4 RBIs.

February 26, 1926: Louis Armstrong Gets the Heebie Jeebies

Left to right: Johnny Dodds, Louis Armstrong,

Johnny St. Cyr, Kid Ory and Lil Hardin Armstrong.

February 26, 1926: Louis Armstrong gets the heebie jeebies.

His band was billed as "Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five." His wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, played piano. It was she who "took the country out of him" and convinced him to assert himself, both on the bandstand and with money. This would end up working against her: Within a few years, he divorced her for spending too much of his money.

The others were musicians he'd previously worked with in his hometown of New Orleans: Edward "Kid" Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, and Johnny St. Cyr on guitar, and sometimes banjo.

Although all of the Hot Five got their professional starts in New Orleans, their initial recording, on November 12, 1925, was in Chicago, at the studio of Okeh Records. He had previously recorded as the trumpet player in the jazz band of Joe "King" Oliver, but this was his 1st time recording a band he led. They recorded Louis' compositions "Yes! I'm in the Barrel" and "Gut Bucket Blues," and Lil's composition "My Heart."

Their next session was on February 26, 1926. Among the songs they recorded was "Heebie Jeebies," written by saxophone player Boyd Atkins. The term "heebie jeebies" was coined by Billy DeBeck, the cartoonist who wrote the Barney Google strip. It means a feeling of anxiety or apprehension.

In addition to playing trumpet like nobody's business, Louis, known as "Satchelmouth" for his big mouth, eventually shortened to "Satchmo" or "Satch," tried scat singing, and this made the record his first real hit.

Armstrong, Ory and St. Cyr would all later admit that the reason Armstrong was scatting -- something already well-known in jazz circles, but not on record -- is that he didn't know the words, and was reading them off a sheet of paper, and he dropped it, and had to improvise. His scatting was the defining "roar" of the Roaring Twenties.

(There's an old joke: "Why does a hummingbird hum? Because he doesn't know the words." And another: Musicians are playing in an apartment, and a woman in the apartment building next door opens her window and yells across the alley, "Don't you know people are trying to sleep?" And the bandleader, acting as if "People Are Trying to Sleep" is a song title, says, "No, but if you hum a few bars of it, we'll catch on!")

In 1928, Armstrong formed a new Hot Five, replacing everyone but himself with members of the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra: Fred Robinson on trombone, Jimmy Strong on clarinet and tenor saxophone, Earl Hines (later nicknamed "Fatha," short for "Father") on piano, Mancy Carr on banjo, and Arthur "Zutty" Singleton on drums. So now it really was Louis Armstrong and a Hot Five. It was this group that recorded the landmark instrumental "West End Blues" in 1928.

Louis Armstrong died on July 6, 1971, of heart trouble, in New York, a few days short of his 70th birthday. Lil Hardin Armstrong died a few weeks after that. Johnny Dodds, the greatest jazz clarinetist of the 1920s, was an alcoholic, and it gave him a fatal heart attack in 1940. Mancy Carr followed in 1946, Johnny St. Cyr in 1966, Kid Ory in 1973, Zutty Singleton in 1975, Jimmy Strong in 1977, Earl Hines in 1983, and Fred Robinson in 1984.

In 1956, rock and roll pioneer Little Richard recorded a different song titled "Heebie Jeebies." It was not a hit.

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February 26, 1926 was a Friday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Maroons, 1-0 at the Duquesne Gardens in Pittsburgh. The Pirates moved in 1930, becoming the Philadelphia Quakers, and folded after 1 more season. The Maroons won the Stanley Cup in 1926 and 1935, but lost money, and folded in 1938.