"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 Syncopaters made the first recording for Brunswick Records on June 11, 1928. An early vocal version was waxed by Ethel Waters.
The "West End" of the title refers to the westernmost point of Lake Pontchartrain in Orleans Parish, Louisiana. In its heyday, it was a thriving summer resort with live music, dance pavilions, seafood restaurants, and lake bathing.
Read more about West End Blues: Louis Armstrong's Recording
Famous quotes containing the words west end, west and/or blues:
“This place is the longest running farce in the West End.”
—Cyril Smith (b. 1928)
“We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise,
And the door stood open at our feast,
When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes,
And a man with his back to the East.”
—Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907)
“As one delves deeper and deeper into Etiquette, disquieting thoughts come. That old Is- It-Worth-It Blues starts up again softly, perhaps, but plainly. Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness. The letters and the conversations of the correct, as quoted by Mrs. Post, seem scarcely worth the striving for. The rules for finding topics of conversation fall damply on the spirit.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)