Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong

Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong. Tennessee Music Pathways. A keeper of the African American string-band tradition, Howard Armstrong was a multi-instrumentalist with a very extensive repertoire. He was also a multilinguist, painter, and teller of folk tales and anecdotes drawn from his long life and career., William Howard Taft Armstrong was born in Dayton, Tennessee, on March 4, 1909 (the Inauguration Day of President William Howard Taft), but, from the age of 3, he grew up in the Furnace Hill district of LaFollette, where his father was a furnace worker. With his father's homemade fiddle, Armstrong was playing in a string band with his brothers by age 10. Two years later, he left home to work with fiddle player Blind Roland Martin in Knoxville. He became what was known as a "songster" - a performer who has mastered many styles of music. , Four of the Armstrong brothers formed a band in Knoxville, performing on WROL as the Wandering Troubadours. Howard Armstrong and his brother Roland subsequently teamed with bassist Carl Martin to perform on Knoxville's Vine Street, in other public places around the city, and in surrounding towns. They passed an audition for Brunswick Records' on-location recording sessions in Knoxville, and on April 3, 1930, recorded two instrumental tunes, "Knox County Stomp" and "Fine Street Rag". The coupling was issued for the country market under the name "the Tennessee Trio" and for the blues market under the name "the Tennessee Chocolate Drops". , In West Virginia, Armstrong was playing in a bar with guitarist and singer Ted Bogan and Roland Martin when an inebriated woman dubbed him "Louis Bluie". The name stuck. The onset of the Great Depression curtailed the music business, forcing Armstrong, Martin and Bogan to venture further afield. They played house parties, bars, social clubs, barbershops and dances throughout the Southeast, eventually moving to Chicago. Searching for gigs, Armstrong began dropping into bars in immigrant neighborhoods to perform songs in the native languages of the patrons. He sang for Poles, Irish, Germans and Italians. Armstrong also performed at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, and on March 23, 1934, he and Bogan recorded four titles in the string-band style for RCA Victor's Bluebird Records. Two singles were issued, but there were no follow-up sessions. , With the string-band style falling out of popularity, Armstrong move to Sparta, Tennessee, working as a sign painter. In 1940, he took a welding job at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and was there when the Japanese bombed the U.S. naval base on Dec. 7, 1941. Returning to the mainland, Armstrong moved first to Chicago and subsequently to Detroit where he worked on the Chrysler assmebly line for 25 years. , In 1971, following his retirement, Armstrong reunited in Chicago with Bogan and Martin. He began recording again and participating in the acoustic music revival scene. The group appeared at the National Folk Festival in Washington, D.C., and in folk clubs across the country. After Martin died in 1979, Armstrong became a solo performer and was the subject of two documentaries. In 1982, he played the Knoxville World's Fair - 49 years after he'd played the Chicago World's Fair. , Armstrong moved to the Boston area in 1996, performing until shortly before his death on July 30, 2003. , [Caption]: Howard Armstrong, age 16, in the center with fiddle, pictured here with his brothers: Roland (with bass at age 12), L.C. (with guitar at age 8), and F.L (with mandolin at age 6)