Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
In Memoriam: John Hammond Jr., 1942–2026
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
A reporter who interviewed Louis Armstrong in 1957, when the trumpeter famously criticized President Dwight Eisenhower over civil rights issues, will be on hand at a New York library next week to discuss the historic moment.
Larry Lubenow, who was writing for the Associated Press at the time, is speaking publicly for the first time about the interview, which he says was even more charged than his article showed. In the story, Armstrong called the president “two-faced” because of his civil rights policies, especially in connection with the infamous Little Rock Nine crisis. He also revealed that he was canceling his state-sponsored Russian tour to protest.
Vanity Fair editor David Margolick will interview Lubenow at the Langston Hughes Community Library in Queens on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The event is free, and it is being sponsored by the Louis Armstrong House Museum, also in Queens.
For more information, see satchmo.net.
Hammond came to the blues through the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which he experienced firsthand in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
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