“All Hail King Louis”: 70th Anniversary of Louis Armstrong’s 1956 Tour of Great Britain

70 years ago this week, Louis Armstrong and His All Stars arrived in England for a major, headline-making tour. How many headlines did they make? Enough to fill a gigantic scrapbook, one commissioned by Armstrong’s management at Associated Booking Corporation and press agent Ernie Anderson. ABC sent the scrapbook to Armstrong and today, we are sharing the contents of the entire scrapbook on this site!

First, a brief bit of backstory: Armstrong first toured England in 1932, spending four months performing all over the country (and coincientally amassing another large scrapbook of clippings; perhaps we’ll share it for the 95th anniversary in 2027). He enjoyed it enough to return in July 1933, spending the next year of his life there, minus a month-long tour of Scandinavia in the fall 1933. We’ve previously shared dozens of snapshots Louis and future-wife Alpha Smith saved during their time in Europe in this post.

But then World War II broke out, keeping Armstrong in States until 1948. When he started making overseas trips regularly in the late 1940s and early 1950s, rumors would start to spread that he would make his way back to England, but it never came to be because of excessively strict rules from the British Musicians’ Union. Finally, the British and American unions agreed to a swap, with Armstrong allowed to perform in England while British trumpeter Freddie Randall would be sent to the States.

Armstrong was then at the height of his “Ambassador Satch” powers; in fact, the album of the same name would be released while Armstrong was in England (this will be the subject of our next post). Armstrong’s 1955 tour of Europe created a tidal wave of press, topped off by Edward R. Murrow following him around for a segment of his See It Now television show. Murrow knew he had something special and planned to continue filming Armstrong in 1956, hoping to shoot him in Australia and during his return to England. The Australian plans fell through, but Murrow compensated by getting Armstrong’s manager Joe Glaser to wedge in a 2 1/2 half day tour of the Gold Coast of Africa right after Armstrong’s return to England. Back in the States, Murrow filmed Armstrong’s legendary collaboration with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium and released the results as the theatrical documentary Satchmo the Great in 1957.

Back to the subject at hand, here’s how Armstrong’s 1956 British tour broke down:

May 3: London, England, arrival.
May 4-13: London, England, Empress Hall, Earls Court, 2 shows per day.
May 14: Manchester, England , Bellevue, 2 shows.
May 15: Glasgow, Scotland, Kelvin Hall, 2 shows.
May 16: Newcastle, England, City Hall, 2 shows.
May 17: Birmingham, England, Embassy Sportsdrome, 2 shows.
May 18: Leicester, England, Granby Halls, 2 shows.
May 19: Dublin, Ireland, National Sports Arena, 2 shows.
May 20: Liverpool, England, The Stadium, 2 shows.
May 21: Concert planned for Sheffield, England was canceled.
May 22: London, England, departure for Accra, Ghana.

Ernie Anderson handled press for this tour and in 2012, the Louis Armstrong House Museum acquired the late Anderson’s personal collection of Armstrong memorabilia, including over 40 photos and the original concert program; here’s the cover:

Perhaps we will share more of Anderson’s Collection in a future post, but today’s focus will be on the scrapbook that Louis himself brought back from England after this tour. As already alluded to, this is not the type of scrapbook Louis usually made with collages and Scotch-taped articles and bits of ephemera; this was prepared by a press service, most likely acting on the orders of Anderson (the dates and newspaper names in red pencil are not in Armstrong’s hand). Still, it’s an impressive document, weighing in at over 50 pages with well over 100 clippings!

Not much commentary is needed for this particular post, but I’ll pop in when I think it’s helpful. If you’re on your phone, you should be able to zoom in to read any article, but if you click on an image, you’ll be taken to our Digital Collections website, where you can scroll down until you see the “Transcripts” tab, click on it, and read the text of each page there.

We’ll start at the beginning with the cover–not much to look at, nothing to see:

The first page opens with an advertisement that ran immediately after the tour, with Louis promising to return “again real soon” (he did indeed return to play a benefit concert in London in December 1956, which we’ve covered here):

The next page has an ad for the main run of shows at Empress Hall in London, with Louis sharing the bill with Ella Logan, “Peg Leg” Bates, and Vic Lewis and His Orchestra–something that many British fans and writers would complain about it (as will be seen in the pages to come):

And now we’re into the thick of it, with articles in the Daily Herald, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, and The Star:

Articles and photos on Armstrong’s arrival:

Armstrong met with the press at the Savoy Hotel upon his arrival, the basis for many of these articles (note his old complaint about modern jazz being “ju-jitsu music”):

Armstrong’s trim appearance–the result of two years of dieting and his discovery of the herbal laxative Swiss Kriss–made for many headlines, but the “Genius is rationed” review in the Evening Standard was the first to complain that Armstrong and All Stars played too little at Empress Hall:

The Daily Mirror noted that Armstrong was a hit, but poor Ella Logan got catcalls from impatient fans waiting for the All Stars to appear:

Profile of Armstrong in the Weekly Sporting Review:

Oof! Points off to the Daily Mirror headline writer for transcribing “Dipper Mouth” as “Dimple Mouth”!

More coverage of his press conference:

Another profile, this one in The Weekly News:

Another Ella Logan story, but the big news here is Louis acknowledging the presence of Princess Margaret at one of his shows by dedicating “Mahogany Hall Stomp” to her–as you’ll see, this became the most publicized story from this trip!

Good interview with Louis in the Manchester Evening Chronicle on the next page:

More on Princess Margaret, along with a photo of Louis and soon-to-be-Princess Grace Kelly:

Praise for Louis and Velma Middleton’s duets and a blurb about the Duke of Kent coming to see Louis after Princess Margaret’s appearance:

It wasn’t long before the traditional jazz “experts” weighed in–here’s a long piece in The Record Mirror by James Asman fretting that perhaps Armstrong was “no longer our property”:

James Asman’s article continued:

Interesting to see the phrase “‘Satchmo’ Louis Armstrong The Great” used a year before Murrow released Satchmo the Great (though even he called it “The Saga of Satchmo” right up until it was released in 1957):

Always nice to see Lucille Armstrong get a profile, as the Record Mirror did on May 12:

This photo was taken at the Savoy Hotel press conference and is used here to advertise Louis’s Decca recordings:

Another naysayer, “The Green Man,” complaining Louis was “not the King of Jazz but the King of Showmen,” alongside more blurbs on Armstrong’s visit with the Duke of Kent:

Another profile of Lucille, this one by Eileen Anderson, along with Mezz Mezzrow’s review of the LP Satch Plays Fats:

Representing the music press, here’s Melody Maker’s take on Louis at Empress Hall run, sharing some of the criticisms of others and admitting the sound at Empress Hall was far from ideal at first, before admitting Louis was playing as well as ever (better than he was in Paris in 1955) and summing it up as “a great jazz show”:

Over in The Sunday Times, Iain Lang summed up the viewpoints of those who viewed Armstrong as an “Uncle Tom”–I’m sure Louis must have bristled when he saw this one:

A long profile in The Sunday Observer, hitting all the beats of Louis’s early years before ending with some nice glimpses of Armstrong’s backstage routine in England:

This page has a reprise of Eileen Anderson’s profile of Lucille, along with lots of shorter stories, including some reviews and previews of upcoming performances in Manchester and Newcastle:

Articles from Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and Bristol:

A positive review of Armstrong in Manchester, along with an “ABC for Squares” dictionary of slang:

For those who have seen Murrow’s Satchmo the Great, he quotes this passage from the following Manchester Guardian editorial: “When the first majestic notes from Louis Armstrong’s trumpet pierced like javelins of sound through the blue haze of King’s Hall, Belle Vue, Manchester, last night, one could sense that this was jazz in all its original splendour, as it was once played in New Orleans. Most of the old jazzmen have died, gone mad or (worse still in the eyes of the puritans) drowned their talents in the luke-warm music of commercial swing. Even Louis Armstrong, it was feared, had developed into nothing but a comic singer during the twenty-three years since he last visited this country. Laugh he did before the crowd last night, but merely in exuberance and not as a clown.”

There are also multiple stories of Armstrong encouraging an eight-year-old trumpeter, Fraser Watson, which prefigures the story of Armstrong encountering seven-year-old trumpeter Enrico Tomasso in England in 1968:

Lots of articles on Louis in Glasgow, eating fried fish out of a newspaper, swinging witht he All Stars, and even playing bagpipes!

More blurbs on Armstrong in Scotland, more bagpipes, and a new profile of Lucille Armstrong:

Steep prices led to a lightly attended show in Glasgow, as reported below, plus there’s a preview of a show in Leicster and more praise from the Manchester Guardian and future Armstrong biographer Max Jones:

Armstrong’s success led to rumors that Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, and Duke Ellington could follow with tours to England–eventually they all did:

The one sad thing on this page is Phillips Records, Columbia’s overseas subsidary, planned to record one of Armstrong’s British shows in Newcastle, but once again the union reared its head and said it wasn’t permitted. Except for the two short performances of “Mack the Knife” and “The Bucket’s Got a Hole in It” in Satchmo the Great, no other recordings have turned up from this tour:

By this late page in the scrapbook, the tributes started coming in from Owen Bryce, Benny Green, and best of all, trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, who made much of the tour with Armstrong and did a beautiful job in summing up the experience:

The New Musical Express asked Armstrong to pen a columns while on tour, which is below, alongside another mention of Princess Margareet, some more good reviews, and notices that one of his final shows had to be canceled.

More on Louis and Humph in the top article, followed by a lukewarm review in the Leicester Mercury and a funny item about losing his mute and needing to have one delivered to his gig at Kelvin Hall:

More on the Phillips live recording falling through, plus a letter to the editor from a fan who was enthralled by Armstrong’s visit, “An Irishman’s Diary” entry on Louis, and a great photo of Louis and Skiffle king Lonnie Donegan that originally ran in Melody Maker:

James Asman returns with another long piece in the Record Mirror, apparently inspired by drummer Barrett Deems complimenting his earlier article:

Over in T. V. Mirror, English reedman Johnny Dankworth attempted a succinct history of jazz (he would go on to share a bill with Armstrong at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City in 1959):

The Picture Post also offered a multiple-page spread dominated by the excellent photos of Haywood Magee, all taken offstage and on during Armstrong’s British tour:

The top article reminisces about some of the negative reactions to Louis when he performaned in England in the 1930s, but check out the photo at the bottom of Louis and Lucille with British jazz royalty Fred Jackson, Humphrey Lyttelton, and Nat Gonella:

At the end of the tour, Humphrey Lyttelton presented Louis with a homemade paper crown onstage–there’s a photo of it, along with Humph’s reflections at the top of the next page:

Reports on Armstrong’s Dublin performances can be found on the previous page and blow, plus there’s more on Lucille and some small blurbs on Louis heading to the Gold Coast of Africa:

Adrian Mitchell wrote of Armstrong’s genius in the Oxford Main, while the shorter clippings are about his departure from England:

More post-mortems from England, with promises to return, but also the first headlines of Louis’s riotous reception in the land soon to be known as the independent nation of Ghana:

A lovely story up front about Louis making the life of an 18-year-old fan, followed by more up-to-the-minute coverage of the riotous response to Armstrong in Ghana:

More from Africa, as well as some more positive reflections of his time in England:

The long story on the left side of the next page is a beautifully written reflection of a writer’s 400-mile journey to see Louis at Empress Hall (I love the ending: “The drive back though the night. Nothing to it. Those choruses were still ringing in our ears, and what if we were a bit sleepy for a day or two. Just whistle ‘Mack the Knife’ and it brings me bolt awake again. Because I was there. I saw Louis.”) The tax story is interesting and is corroborated elsewhere in our Archives by Dr. Alexander Schiff, who remembered having to pay a portion of the taxes Louis owed from his first trip to England in 1932:

The highlight of this page is another excellent article by Humphrey Lyttleton, “Satchmo Post-Mortems.” Here’s a sample: “As I sat in the audience at Birmingham, I was never more ashamed at having been associated with the New Orleans Revival. If all that we have done is to nurture a generation of jazz fans who are so ignorant as to disown the greatest jazz when it is laid on their doorstep, then we deserve a heretic’s fate. I suggest to all the carpers that, next time Louis comes here, they should stop cackling about showmanship and listen humbly to all the wonderful music which is to be heard. Instead of demanding arrogantly that the show should be changed specially for them – on the assumption, I suppose, that we have some divine knowledge of real jazz denied to other nations-they should set about the urgent task of learning, from scratch, what jazz is all about. For my part, I don’t give a damn whether the Armstrong band plays ‘genuine jazz’ or not. If their interpretation of ‘The Gipsy,’ ‘Mack The Knife’ or ‘Tenderly’ is not genuine jazz then it’s something much, much better–wonderful music.”

Here’s the full page:

We’ve hit June clippings on the next page, opening with a photo of Louis at a society party given by Lady Valerie Goulding in Dublin:

More reflections in June about Armstrong’s May tour, with Laurie Hensaw summing up Armstrong’s trip with one word: “SINCERITY”:

Here’s a short Melody Maker article by Max Jones and Sinclair Traill about the trip to the Gold Coast:

And now a bonus for those who made it this far: the scrapbook ends with multiple columns Armstrong wrote for the Daily Express while he was in the middle of the tour. Here’s the first one, about Princess Margaret’s visit:

Two more editions of “Satchmo’s Column”:

And finally, two more installments:

The scrapbook closes as it opened, with the same advertisement of Louis promising to return:

And the back cover closes the book officially!

Wow, what an action-packed artifact! We hope you enjoyed reading through it. And hey, if you were lucky enough to catch Armstrong in Great Britain (hello, Hugh Flint!), please leave us a comment. We’ll be back soon with more on Ambassador Satch, the man and the album.