20-539: Howard Armstrong may refer to: Howard Armstrong (musician) (1909–2003), country blues musician Howard Armstrong (baseball) (1889–1926), baseball player Howard E. Armstrong (1903–1983), Vermont Secretary of State See also [ edit ] Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890–1954), American inventor Ernest Howard Armstrong (1864–1946), Canadian politician and journalist [REDACTED] Topics referred to by
40-473: A heart attack . The Louie Bluie Festival, held each year at Cove Lake State Park near Armstrong's childhood home of LaFollette, celebrates his music and legacy. Elijah Wald Elijah Wald (born 1959) is an American folk blues guitarist, music journalist , and a blues, pop, and cultural music historian . He is a 2002 Grammy Award winner for his liner notes to The Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Box: The Journey of Chris Strachwitz . Wald
60-888: A blues band in Seville , Spain, a swing trio in Antwerp , Belgium, and a rock band in Colombo , Sri Lanka, and studied with Congolese guitarist Jean-Bosco Mwenda . Returning to the United States, he played in "low dives and honky-tonks", and recorded two albums: the LP Songster, Fingerpicker, Shirtmaker on his and Bill Morrissey 's short-lived label Reckless Records and the CD Street Corner Cowboys (Black Rose Records, 2000). He also arranged and played guitar on one track of Dave Van Ronk 's album of Bertolt Brecht songs, and performed as
80-501: A sideman with Eric Von Schmidt and for several years with the legendary black string band leader Howard Armstrong . For many years he wrote for the Boston Globe on " roots music " and " world music "; he also wrote on American and international music for various magazines. In 2000, he was one of many freelancers who left the Globe in a dispute over reprint rights. By the time he and
100-583: A wide range of music, from work songs and spirituals through popular Tin Pan Alley tunes and foreign-language songs. For a few years, Armstrong attended Tennessee State Normal School as an arts student studying painting and design, while also playing cello in the symphony orchestra as well as fiddle in a jazz band. Armstrong, his brother Roland Armstrong, and Carl Martin, billed as the Tennessee Chocolate Drops , recorded for Vocalion Records at
120-411: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Howard Armstrong (musician) Howard " Louie Bluie " Armstrong (March 4, 1909 – July 30, 2003) was an American string band and country blues musician, who played fiddle , mandolin , and guitar and sang. He was also a notable visual artist and raconteur. William Howard Taft Armstrong
140-533: Is to identify and confront myths, especially but not exclusively those that have come to surround prominent figures in popular music . "Myths", Wald remarked in 2002, "are marvelous things, the keys to understanding a culture. "For forty years, white folks have had this myth about Robert Johnson selling his soul to the Devil, and that says a great deal about white fantasies of blackness and its links to mysterious, sexy, forbidden powers. "Back in 1936, black folks in
160-513: The Delta had a different blues myth. It was that a guy who got good enough on guitar and learned how to play the latest hip sounds could get the hell out of the cotton fields and make enough money to move to Chicago, wear sharp new suits, and drive a Terraplane ." Indeed, his first book was a collaboration with his biologist mother entitled Exploding the Gene Myth , in which they wrote that "The myth of
180-660: The Globe parted ways, he was already becoming an increasingly established writer. He had been a major collaborator in the Smithsonian Institution 's multimedia project River of Song , a survey of contemporary music along the Mississippi River , and had just finished Josh White: Society Blues , a biography of the folk-blues singer Josh White . Since 2000, he has written numerous books; several of them had CDs as companion pieces. His subject matter has included Mexican corridos and narcocorridos , hitchhiking ,
200-573: The St. James Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee , on April 3, 1930. Adding guitarist Ted Bogan , the band toured as part of a medicine show and backed blues musicians such as Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Minnie . As Martin, Bogan and Armstrong , they also performed at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago. In 1934 Armstrong and Bogan recorded "State Street Rag" and "Ted's Stomp" for Bluebird Records , with Armstrong using
220-725: The blues musician Robert Johnson and, in How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll , American popular music for roughly the first three-quarters of the 20th century. He co-authored Dave Van Ronk 's posthumously published memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street (the main inspiration for the Coen Brothers movie Inside Llewyn Davis ), wrote the Grammy-winning liner notes for The Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Box: The Journey of Chris Strachwitz , made an instructional DVD for guitarists on
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#1732852745628240-463: The filmmaker Terry Zwigoff , a fan of their recording "State Street Rag". Zwigoff's interest in Armstrong eventually blossomed into a one-hour documentary, Louie Bluie , released in 1985. He was also the subject of the 2002 documentary Sweet Old Song . The long-term relationship between Bogan and Armstrong was often frayed, rivalling the situation between Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry . Armstrong
260-718: The music of Joseph Spence (part of a series issued by Stefan Grossman ), and has curated and/or written liner notes for numerous CD compilations and re-releases. After teaching on and off in the musicology department of the University of California Los Angeles for several years, he moved back to the Boston area and got a doctorate in ethnomusicology and sociolinguistics from Tufts University . He now lives in Philadelphia with his wife, ceramic artist Sandrine Sheon. A recurring theme in Wald's work
280-409: The same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Howard_Armstrong&oldid=833459874 " Category : Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
300-519: The stage name Louie Bluie, which had been given to him by a fan. Armstrong's early recordings are country rags or blues, but this was not his sole repertoire as a performer. According to his sometime accompanist, the writer Elijah Wald , his early theme song was the Gershwin standard " Lady Be Good ", and his group's repertoire included a wide range of hit songs of the period, including Italian, Polish, Mexican and country songs, which he would play to meet
320-546: The varying demands of his audience. After serving in World War II , Armstrong moved to Detroit and worked in the auto industry until 1971. With a revival of interest in old-time African-American music, Martin, Bogan and Armstrong reunited. The band recorded, performed at clubs and festivals and went on a tour of South America sponsored by the U.S. State Department . They played together until Martin's death in 1979. Around this time, both Armstrong and Bogan were contacted by
340-575: Was a recipient of a 1990 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts , which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. He continued to perform with a younger generation of musicians and released his first solo album, Louie Bluie , in collaboration with Ralphe Armstrong and Ray Kamalay in 1995. The album earned him a W.C. Handy Blues Award nomination for Acoustic Album. Armstrong
360-596: Was also an avid painter, designing album covers for his group and occasionally for other artists, including Wald. He designed the juke joint set for the 1985 Oscar-nominated film version of The Color Purple . He also made necklaces from beads, pipe cleaners and found objects. He spoke several languages; on a recording of the song "Chinatown, My Chinatown" he sang one of the verses in Mandarin, having translated it from English. He died in Boston , Massachusetts , aged 94, following
380-512: Was born in Dayton, Tennessee , and grew up in LaFollette, Tennessee . He was the middle son from a musically talented family of nine children. His father was also a musician but supported his family with a job in a local steel mill. As a young teenager he taught himself to play the fiddle and joined a band led by Blind Roland Martin and his brother Carl Martin . They toured the United States performing
400-503: Was born in 1959 in Cambridge, Massachusetts . His parents were George Wald (co-recipient of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ) and Ruth Hubbard , a biologist, with whom Elijah co-authored Exploding the Gene Myth . At age 18, Wald departed for Europe to try to make a living as a folk-blues guitarist. For approximately the next 12 years, he traveled the world. He fronted
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