I didn't come from any kind of academic background, but I lived in a college town and I knew people who weren't without pretense. There was this idea in the town that if something was European it would be good.
History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to make the argument that history is interesting.
The whole point of Louis Armstrong is that no one can really figure him out. There was a while where I thought you could try.