"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)
“One perceives that again and again she has destroyed her life when it was forming into shapes of happiness because of her loyalty to the early misery, her conviction that that has the sanction of ultimate reality, and that beside it all other things are trivial.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.”
—James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)