Louis Armstrong Changed American Music Forever
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, by the time the Jazz Age arrived in the 1920s, Louis Armstrong had already begun transforming American music. Raised in New Orleans and shaped by the streets, dance halls, and neighborhoods surrounding Storyville, Armstrong developed a revolutionary jazz sound that audiences had never heard before. His trumpet playing, gravelly voice, and improvisational style would help turn jazz into one of America’s defining art forms.
Laurence Bergreen, author of Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life, shares the story of the musician known as “Pops,” from his difficult childhood in New Orleans, to becoming one of the most influential figures in jazz and American music
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.0 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. |
| 0:21.9 | To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the IHeart Radio app to Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:30.1 | Louis Armstrong was the founding father of jazz and one of last century's towering cultural figures |
| 0:36.3 | who forever changed the face of American music. |
| 0:40.3 | Here to tell the story is Lawrence Burgreen, |
| 0:42.8 | who wrote the definitive biography on the man known as Pops, |
| 0:47.2 | Louis Armstrong and extravagant life. |
| 0:50.6 | Let's take a listen. |
| 0:53.6 | Look here, boy, let me tell you what they are. |
| 0:57.4 | You're the most, no-goodest guy I've met my life. |
| 1:00.7 | You've been eating up all about red beans and rice. |
| 1:03.6 | Trying to bite me in the back from my wife, the old dog. |
| 1:06.7 | You wait a minute, I come back. |
| 1:07.8 | I'll be sure he's a good. |
| 1:13.1 | I'll be glad when you dance, |
| 1:15.5 | you're asked me. |
| 1:17.2 | I'm going to talk about somebody |
| 1:18.6 | who really occupies a special place in my heart. |
| 1:21.9 | And, you know, I'm a biographer. |
| 1:23.5 | I've written a number of biographies |
... |
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