W.C.Handy's Orchestra of Memphis - A Bunch O Blues (1917)

William Christopher Handy, the "Father of the Blues," was born in Florence, Alabama, on November 16, 1873.

Both his father and grandfather were ministers. He got his first lessons on the cornet in a barber shop, not an unusual spot for musical lessons at the time. Handy taught school before he was 19, but then left home to work in a factory in Bessemer, Alabama, because it paid more. Around 1893, he organized a quartet that performed at the Chicago World's Fair, an exposition which attracted a large number of musicians, including many rag-playing pianists like Tom Turpin and Scott Joplin.

After the fair, Handy traveled the country, trying to make a career in music. For a time, he taught music at A. & M. College in Huntsville, Alabama. However, he was not satisfied with teaching and left to join Mahara's Minstrels as a cornetist, eventually becoming leader of the troupe. While with Mahara's, he traveled extensively and even performed in Cuba. Handy's nickname from these days was "Fess." Usually short for "professor," it suggests the respect other musicians had for his musical knowledge.

In 1902, Handy formed his own band in Clarksville, Mississippi. This group was as much a marching band as a dance orchestra, and they performed for whites and blacks alike. At one of the performances for a white audience, Handy was asked to "play some of your own music." When he began to play, the audience loudly protested that he was not honoring their request. He and his group were asked to step aside. Then three local black men came on stage with string instruments and performed a type of primitive blues. It was obvious to Handy from the crowd reaction that he had missed something in his musical education: the rural sounds had both musical merit and crowd-pleasing potential. It was a lesson that would change Handy's life.

In 1909, Handy and his band were asked to play for the campaign of the Memphis political boss, Edward H. Crump. At the time, the most popular song in their repertoire was a piece called "Mr. Crump". Later new words by George Norton were added, and the title was changed to "The Memphis Blues."

It was the first blues Handy ever wrote. Many consider it to be the first blues song in history, although due to Handy's problems finding a publisher it was preceded in print by "Baby Seals Blues" by Artie Matthews, in August of 1912 and the "Dallas Blues" by Hart A. Wand in September of the same year. Handy's song, which had been released as an instrumental in 1910, came out at the end of September or the beginning of October 1912, when Handy finally decided to publish it himself.

Selling the song to retailers was not much easier than selling it to a publisher, and one major white music retailer flatly refused to purchase Handy's work.

While in Memphis, Handy also wrote the "St. Louis Blues," which proved to be his best-selling number and one of the most recorded songs in the history of music. Its popularity was not confined to the United States: England's King Edward VIII once asked Scottish bagpipers to play it for him, and in the thirties, when Ethiopia was invaded by Italy, it became the Ethiopian battle hymn. Forty years after it was first published, it was still supplying Handy with annual royalties of nearly $25,000.

After mild success with his Memphis-based publishing firm, Handy and his partner, Harry Pace, decided to move their operation to New York City, where they started publishing in 1917. During the twenties, Handy continued to write songs, and in 1926, he wrote Blues: An Anthology, which contained many of his earlier compositions and explained their origins.

During the thirties, Handy composed a number of spirituals, and in 1938 he published a book entitled W. C. Handy's Collection of Negro Spirituals. Later that year, he was given a tribute at Carnegie Hall. In 1939, at the New York World's Fair, he was listed as a leading contributor to American culture. W. C. Handy died in New York City on March 28, 1958. In 1969, he was honored posthumously by the United States Postal Service with a commemorative stamp. The Beale Street area of Memphis is known today as W. C. Handy Park.


W.C.Handy's Orchestra of Memphis - A Bunch O Blues (1917)

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Music

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• W.C.Handy
• 1917
• 1900's
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[jazzgirl1920s]

I have read that W.C. Handy was the Father of the Blues. He was certainly one of the first recorded pioneers of jazz and blues if he made this record in 1917. That was the year of the Original Dixieland Jazz band making the first jazz record.

[memfisman]

Beautiful! and so sweet!

[CVargas]

This is so beautiful.

[bigtrukdon]

If you find this boring then perhaps you got them - "It don't sound like Bieber" Blues.

[Ken9Skinner]

Handy's "St. Louis Blues" was thought to be the American national anthem when they played in Paris, that's how popular that tune was. By 1916 Pace and Handy publishing was established and later the record label Black Swan. Cool daddy cool.

[STEVEFINNERTY]

first to publish not first to play ,,the blues

[Bumblebee38]

@nazrel007

Who is a BORE ????

[meximetal96]

93 years ago, and still pleasing to the ear now.

[nazrel007]

boring