Ricky Riccardi
speaker
185 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Jun 2025
Ricky Riccardi’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Either one or the other, exactly. But there was also something about Armstrong where I just think his natural personality, his showmanship, his mugging, his way of putting over a song, especially when he got to New York. I think the Henderson and the men in his band, which kind of fancy themselves as musicians,
You know, Harlem Renaissance intellectuals, they kind of look down at that kind of Southern fried performing style. And so Armstrong, he for the rest of his life, he always said Henderson had a million dollar talent in his band, but he missed the boat. And I even called one of the chapters in the book Blessed Assurance, because I think before anybody else, Armstrong was confident.
in his abilities as a vocalist. He knew it was different and he knew if he only got the chance, you know, people would respond. And here we are, you know, in 2025, what a wonderful world just went, you know, certified double platinum in 2024 of a record where he doesn't even play a note of trumpet. So once again, you know, Armstrong kind of has the last laugh.
He just needed that opportunity to let people hear that distinctive voice of his.
Another point that he always wanted to stress, you know, because people would say, oh, you know, the trumpet player, that's the genius. You know, the guy singing and that's kind of he's just doing that, you know, just to commercialize himself and put these songs over. But no, I have a quote from Arvel Shaw. I said that if Armstrong never picked up the trumpet, he would have been a singer.
You know, singing was in his blood more than the trumpet. And it was his real first musical foray in New Orleans before he ever picked up a cornet.
So Armstrong was born in 1901. I won't get into the whole birthday debate. You know, I believe he was born July 4th, 1901, but for reasons that are explained in the book. But either way, he's born 1901, spends his first few years living with his grandmother. But then around the age of five, he moves to the third ward. Liberty and Perdido streets.
He moves into a tiny flat with his mother and sister. And this neighborhood was so dangerous, it was known as the battlefield. And Armstrong, he spent most of his adult years telling these stories with a little bit of a wink and a smile. And he would talk about Black Benny, you know, the drummer who would fight during the parades.
And he would say, oh, well, my mother, whether or not she was a prostitute, I cannot say. But, you know, she'd worked hard and taught us the rudiments. And so for this book, you know, I wanted to keep Armstrong's words in place, but I wanted to dig a little deeper and talk about some of these characters.
And the deeper I went into police records and newspaper reports, all I can say is it's a miracle he emerged alive because from the time he's five, six, seven years old, He is seeing, you know, gunfights and stabbings and there's gamblers and pimps and prostitutes. And his mother is arrested almost every year and sent to the house of detention, sometimes three, four weeks.
Armstrong would have to watch over his baby sister, cooking for her and for him and doing whatever he could to make ends meet. He's working. He's selling newspapers. He's working for the Jewish Karnofsky family. He's doing whatever he can to survive. But the police are there.
He mentioned the only time he was ever scared in his childhood were the police because they would whip his head and then ask his name later. gets arrested multiple times, the first time at the age of nine for being a dangerous and suspicious character.
And even in his teenage years, when he finally starts taking music seriously and getting more and more gigs, he said it was a miracle he didn't die at these honky-tonks. Because, you know, every night there would be a gunfight, bullets going right past him. And he said that, you know, the bouncer, his name was Oscar Slippers Johnson, he would protect Armstrong, make sure he didn't get hit.
And that's why I think when you read Armstrong's second autobiography, Satchman, My Life in New Orleans, it ends with with him leaving New Orleans and joining King Oliver, because I think in his mind that was the climax. Everything that followed was gravy because he had survived this childhood that if it was a Hollywood film, somebody would say, well, this is cliche. This is rags to riches.
You know, nobody could have actually experienced this. But in his case, it's all true. And I found all the facts to back him up.
And that was that was one line in his New York Times obituary that I'm sure a lot of Hello Dolly fans kind of scratching their head. But it's true. And, you know, he told that story, too. He was stabbed in the shoulder by the prostitute that he tried serving as the pimp for. And he showed off that scar for the rest of his life.
So I also take time in the book to talk about the other figures from the Waif's home, the orphanage where he spent a couple of years and some of these stories.
It was. According to his sister, she said definitively it was their mother's gun.
He was there a year and a half.
I mean, you hate to say something like, you know, that's the best thing that ever happened to him. But honestly, it was the first time that he had structure in his life. You know, the wife's home gave him three meals a day and schooling and taught him trades. But more importantly, they had a music program. It was run by a man named Peter Davis.
Showing 61–80 of 185 · page 4 of 10
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