Lil Hardin Armstrong
| Lil Hardin Armstrong | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Lillian Hardin |
| Born | February 3, 1898 |
| Origin | Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | August 27, 1971 (aged 73) |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, pianist, composer, bandleader |
| Associated acts |
Louis Armstrong King Oliver |
Lil Hardin Armstrong (February 3, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was a jazz pianist, composer, arranger, singer, and bandleader. She was the second wife of Louis Armstrong, with whom she collaborated on many recordings in the 1920s.
Her compositions include "Struttin' with Some Barbecue", "Don't Jive Me", "Two Deuces", "Knee Drops", "Doin' the Suzie-Q", "Just for a Thrill" (which became a major hit when revived by Ray Charles in 1959), "Clip Joint", and "Bad Boy" (a minor hit for Ringo Starr in 1978). Her composition "Oriental Swing" was heavily sampled to create Parov Stelar's 2012 retro-song "Booty Swing", which in turn gained notoriety when it was used in a 2013 Chevrolet commercial. Armstrong was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2014.
She was born Lillian Hardin in Memphis, Tennessee, where she grew up in a household with her grandmother, Priscilla Martin, a former slave from near Oxford, Mississippi. During her early years, Hardin was taught hymns, spirituals, and European classical music on the piano. She was drawn to popular music and later blues.
Hardin first received piano instruction from her third-grade teacher, Violet White. Her mother then enrolled her in Mrs. Hook's School of Music. It was at Fisk University, a college for African Americans located in downtown Nashville, that Hardin was taught a more acceptable approach to the instrument. She received a diploma from Fisk, returning to Memphis in 1917. In August 1918, she moved to Chicago with her mother and stepfather. By then, she had become proficient in reading music, a skill that landed her a job as a sheet music demonstrator at Jones Music Store.
The store had been paying Hardin $3 a week, but bandleader Lawrence Duhé offered $22.50. Knowing that her mother would not approve of her working in a cabaret, she made it known that her new job was playing for a dancing school. Three weeks later, the band moved on to a better booking at the De Luxe Café, where the entertainers included Florence Mills and Cora Green. From there, the band moved up to the jewel of Chicago's nightlife, the Dreamland. Here the principal entertainers were Alberta Hunter and Ollie Powers, and there was no finer nightspot in Chicago. When King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band replaced Duhé's group at the Dreamland, Oliver asked Hardin to stay with him. She was with Oliver at the Dreamland in 1921, when an offer came for the orchestra to play a six-month engagement at San Francisco's Pergola Ballroom. At the end of that booking, Hardin returned to Chicago, while the rest of the Oliver band went to Los Angeles. She later studied at the New York College of Music, where she earned a postdoctorate degree in 1929.
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