[Dixielandjazz] Luckey Roberts & Stardust

[Stephen G Barbone]

To add fuel to the fire, here is an excerpt from a March 12, 2012  
interview of Jin Hendricks by "All About Jazz". The entire interview  
is at:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=41719



Cheers,

Steve Barbone

www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazband



AAJ: Following up on a topic I know you have strong feelings about,  
tell me more about who you think wrote "Stardust."

JH: Luckey Roberts. His family was West Indian and they named him  
Luckeyeth, but that got shortened to Luckey. He was a great stride  
pianist who hung around James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Lucky  
Roberts wrote "Stardust" and sold it for 25 bucks. A lot of songs were  
written by black people, like "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" has  
white songwriters listed but the black people sold it. That was the  
only way they could make money 'cause ASCAP wouldn't let them in.  
That's one of the disgraceful aspects of American history. And these  
great songs like "Stardust" get written by Luckeyth Roberts and sold  
for 25 dollars to Hoagy Carmichael. If you hear Hoagy play, you know  
he never could have written that song. Mitchell Parish, who wrote the  
lyric, I played him Louis Armstrong's "Stardust," where he sings the  
verse:


Luckey Roberts way;
Over and over and over and over and over 'til it's the end of the day.
When Lucky plays, everybody sings;
If it's Lucky's tune, you know it swings.
I invited Mr. Parish out to lunch with Phoebe Jacobs as a witness and  
I played that for him. He turned to her and said, "How the hell did he  
know that?" He proved it.