Saturday 9: All of Me

Saturday 9: All of Me (1932)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In this song, Louis Armstrong calls his girl "baby." What's the last endearment someone used when speaking to you?

A. My husband calls me "sweetie pie" a lot. Or "baby." Sometimes I think he doesn't know my name.

 

2) He sings that losing his love made him cry. Do you cry easily?

A. Not really, no.

 

3) Louis was born in New Orleans, a city famous for music and cuisine. What's something you love about your hometown?

A. My county has a deep history, of which my family played a role . . . all the way back to the American Revolution. We're surrounded by the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, and I love their rolling majesty.

 

4) At age 11, Louis unwisely fired a pistol during a New Year's Eve celebration and was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile detention facility. It was there that he met music teacher Peter Davis, who believed in Louis and taught him to play cornet and bugle. Tell us about someone who believed in you and made your life better.

A. The editor of The Fincastle Herald believed I could be a good writer one day and hired me to be a stringer way back in 1984. If he hadn't done that, I'd probably have stayed in the legal profession, though I hated that work.

 

5) Louis would say that arrest changed his life for the better because it was at the detention center that "me and music got married." After his release, he began playing on street corners, or in honkytonks . . . any place he could hone his skills. What is something you have worked hard to be better at?

A. Crocheting, for one thing. Playing the guitar, for another. And writing.

6) In the late 1920s, Louis led a jazz band called The Hot Five. His wife, Lil, believed he was too talented not to receive star billing. He just didn't feel ready. She went behind his back and convinced the management at Chicago's Dreamland Cafe to advertise: "The Hot Five, featuring Louis Armstrong: The World's Greatest Trumpet Player." It worked! At the end of the gig, Okeh Records signed him to a recording contract. Can you think of a time when, like Lil, you were glad you asked for forgiveness rather than permission?

A. I took guitar lessons when I was a teenager without telling my parents.

7) In 1932, the year this record was popular, the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped and killed. This famous case inspired Agatha Christie to write Murder on the Orient Express. Have you read the book? Seen the movie, the remake or the miniseries?

A. I have not read the book or seen any kind of movie or television show about it. I've heard of it, of course.

8) Another aviator was in the news in 1932. Amelia Earhart flew 14 hours from Newfoundland to Londonderry. What is the longest flight you've ever taken?

A. I flew to Spain when I was a teenager.

9) Random question: You have the opportunity to travel safely in a time machine. Would you go back to the past, into the future, or say, "no thanks, I'll stay in 2022?"

A. I would go into the future. I want to see how we turn out. Of course, it would be my luck I'd land in the spot where they're dropping the final bomb of the world. But maybe all would be well, and I'd only be eaten by a zombie.

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