Author Archives: Ricky Riccardi

In our last post on Louis Armstrong’s 1969-1971 tapes, we mentioned that Reel 163 featured the only extended sequence on all of the tapes of Louis and his adopted son Clarence Hatfield Armstrong together. We promised to share that audio in a separate post–and this is that post, but it’s also much more: it isContinue reading ““My Adopted Son”: The Story of Clarence Hatfield Armstrong”

Our previous post was packed with content and today’s won’t be very far behind as Louis continues to reach back to tapes from the 1950s and 1960s and come up with almost nothing but gold. Let’s not waste any time and dive straight in. Reel 161Accession Number: 1987.3.459 Reel 161 is a bit confusing, butContinue reading “Louis Armstrong’s 1969-1971 Tapes: Reels 161-165”

Happy New Year and welcome to the first “That’s My Home” post of 2023! We took a breather during the holidays but we’re ready to jump back in with the final few installments on our long-running series on Louis Armstrong’s 1969-1971 reel-to-reel tapes (catch up on the entire series here). When we last left off,Continue reading “Louis Armstrong’s 1969-1971 Tapes: Reels 156-160”

Last time out, Louis began redubbing his May 1970 appearances as co-host of The Mike Douglas Show in December of that same year, something that continues for the first few tapes in today’s post–but then the surprises and fun stuff starts and doesn’t stop until the end of the post so be sure to makeContinue reading “Louis Armstrong’s 1969-1971 Tapes: Reels 151-155”

It’s crazy to think that when I revived this series in July of this year, I started with Reel 50 and here we are with a post that ends with Reel 150. I didn’t plan on dedicating the rest of 2022 to analyzing over 100 of Louis Armstrong’s tapes, but I wouldn’t be doing thisContinue reading “Louis Armstrong’s Tapes 1969-1971: Reels 146-150”

In our previous installment, Louis grabbed a bunch of tapes he originally made in the 1950s and gave them new catalog numbers in late 1970, which resulted in his unique collages coming back to the forefront of this series–a trend that continues in today’s post. Reel 141Accession Number: 1987.3.439 Right off the bat, Armstrong’s newContinue reading “Louis Armstrong’s 1969-1971 Tapes: Reels 141-145”

In the early days of this series (which began in 2020!), most of the posts were on the short side as the goal was to share Louis’s catalog pages and collages and perhaps a paragraph or two on the content of the tapes, which were mostly dubs of interesting records Louis made while convalescing atContinue reading “Louis Armstrong’s 1969-1971 Tapes: Reels 136-140”

In case you missed it, two weeks ago, we shared a post on Louis Armstrong’s Reels 126-130 that included unedited master takes from Louis ‘Country and Western’ Armstrong, audio of Louis being interviewed by Joe Delaney, the first portion of Louis’s 1970 appearance on The Flip Wilson Show and a hilarious tape with Lloyd VonContinue reading “Louis Armstrong’s 1969-1971 Tapes: Reels 131-135”

In the previous installment of this series, we made multiple allusions to Lloyd Von Blaine, explaining that we would need a separate post to fully delve into the background of his relationship with Louis Armstrong, but more importantly, to set up a rollicking, hilarious reel-to-reel tape they made in September 1970 that will be sharedContinue reading ““Satch and Von”: Louis Armstrong and Lloyd Von Blaine Rehearse “Integrate the Love” September 1970″

We interrupt our ongoing series on Louis Armstrong’s reel-to-reel tapes to celebrate the 75th anniversary of arguably the greatest live recording in the All Stars’s discography, Satchmo at Symphony Hall. As always, we’ll share some treasures from our Archives–including a long audio segment from one of Louis’s tapes that you won’t want to miss–but first,Continue reading ““Whip It, Big Sid!”: 75 Years of “Satchmo at Symphony Hall””