This is the book which opened up the world of coin
collecting to me as a hobby. I was 11 years old at the time I first read it.
That was in 1965 and the book had been out since 1954, the year in which I was
born. From the very first page, when the reader is told that Mr. Armstrong was
born in 1900, I had to have an Indian Head penny with that date. Not a brand
new shiny one; that would never do. I wanted a used and slightly worn one, in
the hope that this may have been one of those which had been tossed at Louis
Armstrong when he played the streets and honky tonks in New Orleans.
The amazing thing to me is that the book is written so
vividly that my memories are pretty much in line with the book I just re-read. All of the color and noise of New Orleans at
the turn of the century ring from Mr. Armstrong’s unique prose and his keen
sense of observation.
Born the son a big hearted woman and a no count father he
never really knew; he was roaming the streets of the city, absorbing the sights
and sounds. When he was about 8 he fired a pistol on New Year’s Eve and was
sent to the Waifs Home for several years. It was there he first came in contact
with the coronet through the school’s band. In short time he was the leader of
that band.
Upon release he worked with a mule cart, delivering coal and
playing music at night. During the last days of Storyville and the vice
crackdown in World War One, he was playing with some of the original greats;
particularly Kid Orley and King Oliver; his boyhood idol.
By the early 1920’s he was playing with the King in Chicago;
never looking back. This book covers only the first years of Louis Armstrong’s
life. It was written in 1954. He wrote one more in the late 1960’s covering the
rest of his remarkable career. Both books are equally candid and informative,
and I recommend them both highly.
