Louis Armstrong was one of the greatest musicians in the short history of human entertainment. What few people know, though, is Louis was also a great advertising pitchman. His favorite product to shill was Swiss Kriss — a laxative he used daily. He would give Swiss Kriss to friends and new acquaintances as hello gifts.
Continue reading → Louis Armstrong and the Great Swiss Kriss Evacuation
Last week, I was intrigued to read about the new “Mastered for iTunes” albums that are now appearing in the online store:
Enhanced Audio on iTunes: This week, Apple quietly introduced a new section of its iTunes store called Mastered for iTunes, with albums whose sound has been adjusted by engineers “for higher fidelity sound on your computer, stereo and all Apple devices.” Mastering, the fine tuning at the end of the recording process, has long been tailored to specific audio formats, and Apple’s changes come after years of complaints by musicians, including Neil Young, that sound quality suffers from the compression used by digital services to reduce a file’s size.
In my article — American Folklore and the Blues Black Cat Bone — we discussed the song “The Birth of the Blues” in the comments stream. Today, as an important follow-up to that conversation, I want to take you a little deeper into the birth of “The Birth of the Blues” in performance because it is an interesting watershed song.
Continue reading → The Birth of The Birth of the Blues in Performance
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