Embedded above is an interview with Louis Armstrong conducted by two teenagers, Michael Aisner and James R. Stein, in 1964 that aired on their 10-watt high school radio station, WNTH in Winnetka, Illinois. It’s been animated by PBS’s Blank on Blank animation project, the same outfit that gave the world the great interview in which Jim Morrison explained his love of fat people.
As the story goes, the two boys, then 14 and 15, heard about Armstrong playing a concert at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, which was not far from their school in Winnetka. They requested an interview, Satchmo agreed and for twenty minutes they posed questions to him in his dressing room while professional reporters waited outside for a chance to talk to Armstrong. According to Aisner and Stein, Armstrong was wearing boxers during the interview.
In the interview Armstrong explains how he got the nickname “Satchmo” and talks about growing up in an orphanage New Orleans, among other things. He also dispenses some advice on how to rise above obstacles in life to succeed: “You’ve got to be good or bad as the devil.”
Enjoy!
(Via The Hairpin)
