“Basin Street Blues” is a song often performed by Dixieland jazz bands, written by Spencer Williams in 1928 and recorded that year by Louis Armstrong. The verse with the lyric “Won’t you come along with me / To the Mississippi…” was later added by Glenn Miller and Jack Teagarden. Pianist and composer Spencer Williams titled this number after the street where he lived as a youngster with his aunt. But the house he lived in was no ordinary house: it was Mahogany Hall, probably the most famous brothel of Storyville, New Orleans’ red light district. And Spencer’s aunt was the notorious madam Lulu White.
Williams composed the tune in 1928, eleven years after Storyville closed and seven years after Basin Street had been changed to North Saratoga Street by city fathers who wanted every trace of the Storyville “experiment” to disappear. (Ironically, they changed the name back in 1946, no doubt due in part to Williams’ song.) As is common with so many jazz standards, trumpeter/vocalist Louis Armstrong’s version is the premier one, done at a time when his six-piece group included his perfect musical foil, the great pianist Earl Hines. Although Armstrong sings on the record, it’s a scat vocal backed by the rest of the band. Armstrong’s version also includes the original verse, which was a 12-bar blues.
The person with whom the tune was most often associated was trombonist/vocalist Jack Teagarden. Although he had recorded the number in 1929 with the Louisiana Rhythm Kings (a recording band with not one musician from Louisiana), it wasn’t until the session from February, 1931, with another recording band, the Charleston Chasers, that “Basin Street Blues” really made an impact.
It is generally assumed that Spencer Williams wrote the lyrics. According to Jack Teagarden’s recollection, he and Glenn Miller were responsible for both the music and lyrics for the “new” verse and the lyrics for the chorus. The following, from Bill Crow’s Jazz Anecdotes, tells the real story: “I was home in New York the evening before the “Basin Street Blues” record date when Glenn called me from his apartment in Jackson Heights. ‘Jack, I think we could do a better job if we could put together some lyrics and you could sing it. Want to come over and see what we can do?’…We finally finished the job sometime early in the morning. Next day, we cut the record. It’s been the most popular I’ve ever done! The lyrics were later included with the sheet music, but it never carried our names.”
Miller and Teagarden’s lyrics paint a picture of Basin Street that never really existed. The line “you’ll never know how nice it seems, or just how much it really means” has sent many a tourist looking for “where welcome’s free, and dear to me.” It gives the impression that you step off of a Mississippi steamboat right onto the street that’s paradise, but it’s actually eight blocks northwest of the river. As far as being “a heaven on earth,” from 1895-1917 it was the heart of the red light district. After Storyville was closed, many of the buildings were torn down or vacant, and in the 1940s the majority that remained were torn down for a department store warehouse and a government housing project. Although there have been plans for years for a rejuvenation of the street, the only addition has been a large grocery store. But one street over toward the French Quarter, North Rampart Street, has seen a number of excellent music clubs spring up which may presage regeneration.
