West End Blues

"West End Blues"
Instrumental by Joe "King" Oliver
Released1928 (1928)
RecordedJune 11, 1928
GenreJazz
LabelBrunswick
Composer(s)Joe "King" Oliver

"West End Blues" is a multi-strain twelve-bar blues composition by Joe "King" Oliver. It is most commonly performed as an instrumental, although it has lyrics added by Clarence Williams.

King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators made the first recording for Brunswick Records on June 11, 1928.[1] Clarence Williams later added lyrics to the instrumental tune. He recorded the song several times in 1928, first with vocalist Ethel Waters, then with Irene Mims, aka Hazel Smith (with King Oliver playing trumpet),[2] then again with Katherine Henderson.[3]

The "West End" of the title refers to the westernmost point of Lake Pontchartrain within Orleans Parish, Louisiana; it was the last stop on the trolley line in New Orleans to the lake.[4] In its heyday, it was a thriving summer resort with live music, dance pavilions, seafood restaurants, and lake bathing.

  1. ^ Laird, Ross. Brunswick Records: A Discography of Recordings, 1916-1931, Greenwood Press (2001), p. 592. ISBN 0-313-30208-1
  2. ^ Riccardi, Ricky (June 28, 2012). "84 Years of West End Blues". The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong.
  3. ^ "Blues Influence". Facebook.com. Archived from the original on 2022-02-26. Retrieved 2014-09-13.
  4. ^ Brothers, Thomas (2014). Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 293. ISBN 978-0-393-06582-4.