Henry Worthington Armstrong

Background

Henry Worthington Armstrong was born on July 22, 1879 in Somerville, Massachusetts, United States. Nothing is known of his family except that his father was in the piano business.

Education

Armstrong attended public school in Jamaica Plain, Massachussets, and after a brief career as a professional boxer began performing on the piano, singing, and writing songs.

Career

In 1896, while working in a jewelry store on Winter Street in Boston, he sang with a street-corner quartet. Although he later became a successful vaudevillian, neither Armstrong nor the quartet beguiled Boston pedestrians, and he was unable to interest Boston music publishers in his songs. Frustrated by the rejection of his ballad "My Old New England Home, " Armstrong left Boston and went to New York. Arriving there in 1898 with only $2. 65 in his pocket, he secured a job playing the piano in a Coney Island cafe. He earned $2. 00 for a day that stretched from 11:00 A. M. to 2:00 A. M. He remained there until he found work at the Sans Souci Music Hall on Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.

His salary was so low that he moved in with a trio of roomers, one of whom was Joseph M. Schenk, a druggist who later became chairman of the board of Twentieth Century-Fox Films. Later, while playing at the Bohemia on Twenty-ninth Street, then the heart of New York's Tin Pan Alley, Armstrong began placing songs with M. Witmark, the music-publishing company for which he went to work as a rehearsal pianist. Armstrong's "My Old New England Home" was ultimately transformed into "Sweet Adeline, " or "the bacchanalian chant of the nation's bibulous"--"Sweet Ad-Duh-LINE. "

During the course of four years' collaboration with three different songwriters, Armstrong first approached Charles Lawlor, who had written "The Sidewalks of New York" and who held the melody for six months before returning it. He next solicited the help of Jimmy Walker, later the mayor of New York, with whom he wrote "Goodbye, Eyes of Blue. " When Walker abandoned this work, Armstrong turned to Richard Gerard Husch, a Greenwich Villager who thought that he could fit the lyrics of his "Sweet Rosalie" to Armstrong's melody. "Sweet Rosalie" was rejected by several publishers, including Witmark (Armstrong's employer); Howley, Haviland and Dresser; and Jerome H. Remick-Whitney-Warner.

Eventually Witmark reversed its decision and accepted the ballad that was to become a favorite of barbershop quartets, but only after the title had been changed. Legend has it that Armstrong and Husch were walking along Broadway when they spotted a billboard announcing the farewell appearance of the famous opera singer Adelina Patti. Husch rhymed Patti's first name with pine, and Witmark contracted for the ballad, although with some reluctance because of the concocted rhyme.

In 1903 "Sweet Adeline" was finally printed--on the title page Armstrong's name was given erroneously as Harry, and Husch was called Richard Gerard--and began its remarkable climb to worldwide popularity. Husch claimed that the song was first performed by Everard Calthorp at the old New York Theatre and that it was popularized by the Messenger Boys Trio, who included the famed vaudevillians Willie and Eugene Howard. But Armstrong and Isidore Witmark attributed introduction of the ballad to the Quaker City Four, who sang it at Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre at Forty-second Street and Seventh Avenue.

The popularity of "Sweet Adeline" grew considerably when John J. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald made it his campaign song in his successful campaigns to become mayor of Boston in 1906 and 1910. What "The Sidewalks of New York" became to Governor Alfred Smith of New York, "Sweet Adeline" was to Major John Fitzgerald.

In 1929 the song served as the title of a Jerome Kern operetta starring the torch singer Helen Morgan. Although it was not heard in the Broadway show, its use in the movie version of the operetta led the writers to bring a $250, 000 lawsuit against Warner Brothers. The case was settled out of court, and "Sweet Adeline" has since reportedly been sung or played in more than 200 films and has sold more than two million copies.

Armstrong composed many other songs, including the well-known titles "I Love My Wife But Oh You Kid! , " "The Frisco Rag, " and such sequels as "I Love You Just the Same, Sweet Adeline" and "The Little Grand Daughter of Sweet Adeline. " But none approached his barbershop-ballad hit in popularity.

His second most successful song was "Nellie Dean" (1906), which was a favorite of British music-hall audiences but was not nearly so popular in the United States.

For fifteen years, before and after World War I, Armstrong performed in vaudeville theaters in the United States and Canada as part of the team of Armstrong and Clark. Their popularity was such that they played the Orpheum and B. F. Keith circuits six times and traveled also on the Poli, Western Vaudeville, Wilmer and Vincent, Interstate, and Loew's circuits.

During World War I Armstrong entertained troops in camps, barracks, canteens, and hospitals, and also the Merchant Marine. He was admitted to membership in the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1929.

From 1937 to 1949 he was in partnership with Frank Sherman in United Entertainment Productions, a Broadway booking agency. Armstrong died in the Bronx at the age of seventy-one. He was survived by his wife, Addie Harris Russey, whom he married in 1943.

Achievements

• Armstrong's biggest hit was "Sweet Adeline", written in 1903 with Richard H. Gerard. His 1905 sentimental ballad "Nellie Dean" became the signature song of the British music hall singer Gertie Gitana, and a popular British pub song.

Connections

He was married to Addie Harris Russey.

Spouse:

Addie Harris (Russey) Armstrong