Introduction
W C Handy was known as ‘The Father of the Blues.’
This popular coining of the late 1920s stuck with him.
He was also the blues’ first modern musician.
Handy was born in 1873 in the town of Florence, Alabama.
This town was a 200-year-old cotton colony on the Tennessee River.
Handy made blues mainstream.
He took traditional African American music and brought it into popular culture.
Handy contributed elements of blues to composition and performance.
This made them available to a wider audience.
He gave us such classics as ‘St Louis Blues’ (1896)’ and ‘Memphis Blues’ (1912).
He helped formulate the blues genre.
He Africanized the blues idiom.
He could notate it and publish it, which meant that blues were preserved.
This vocal music reached a wider audience and informed subsequent generations of musicians.
Handy’s influence extended through his compositions.
It also extended to the way he wrote down blues history.
His autobiography is a first-hand account of the early blues scene.
Handy left an inheritance that has become a part of the legacy of American music.
His music served as a foundation for modern blues and jazz.
Today’s music lovers celebrate Handy’s contribution to the development of blues and jazz.
They pay tribute to this legend of American musical heritage.
W. C. Handy’s Early Life and Musical Beginnings
W.C Handy was born on 16 November 1873 in Florence, Alabama, the son of formerly enslaved parents.
His childhood was deeply religious.
He later recalled: ‘Jesus sat on my piano bench wherever my fingers ran.’
His pastor father ‘disapproved of music that had anything to do with the world’.
But Handy soon crafted his first guitar.
He used the back of a discarded cigar box and strung it with wire.
Handy’s first formal music instruction occurred in the church.
He joined a local band as a teenager.
When he expressed his renewed ambition to his parents, they were not supportive at all.
Handy secretly worked a job and saved money to buy a cornet and lessons.
Handy worked at a shovel factory and as a laborer.
He pursued his musical ambitions.
In 1892, he joined Mahara’s Minstrels.
The troupe toured. It provided Handy with invaluable performance experience.
However, Handy’s germinal musical experience was the result of an encounter.
He happened to hear a local spending an idle evening sitting on the front steps of his home.
The local was playing the guitar with a knife.
He lived for several years in the easy subsistence of a poor man.
In 1886, he finally married Ella Shepherd and settled down with her in her hometown, Helena, Arkansas.
In Helena, he made some money as a riverboat waiter, then became a barber’s apprentice.
Handy and Ella decided to have a child.
This was the first of their five children.
Handy took a teaching job at the segregated black school in town to support his family.
For many years he also had to supplement his limited income by taking odd jobs.
And, despite these challenges, Handy still managed to pursue his musical interests.
In 1903, Handy had an epiphany in Mississippi.
He was at a railway station where he heard a blues musician.
The raw and authentic music resonated strongly with Handy.
Handy began to write music based on this new composition style.
He incorporated the seed of the blues.
This combined European musical forms with music of African American origin.
Its expression was related to what later became the blues.
In 1912, he published ‘Memphis Blues’, his first big hit — the start of his extraordinary career.
But Handy’s backstory, like his blues, came from the depths of his struggles.
Today he has been lauded as the Father of the Blues.
W. C. Handy Discovered the Blues
Handy stumbled upon the blues quite by accident.
In 1903, standing on a platform at the Tutwiler, Mississippi railroad station, he heard a bluesman.
Ever after, Handy said, he was ‘illumined’ by it.
The man played a guitar behind which he slid an old-fashioned pocketknife.
He was singing too – ‘a song that was: ‘Goin’ where the Southern cross’ the doggone yellow moon/Goin’ where the doggone bloodhounds soon… /Ain’t got nobody in all this world, Ain’t got nobody but what I got…’.
Handy found it to be the creepiest thing he had ever heard.
Seeing that show was Handy’s first blues experience.
For the first time, he was confronted by a form that spoke to the human condition.
He must have perceived it as a unique medium.
Until the black vaudeville show, he wrote and performed ragtime and minstrels.
The raw emotion and novel style of the blues must have been an important revelation for him.
Handy introduced blues into his songs.
He mixed blues with classical music training to produce a new hybrid, more vibrant sound.
His first such blues composition, ‘Memphis Blues’, was published in 1912 and flew high up the charts.
Before long, blues was a mainstream sound.
This was undoubtedly a momentous development, not least because Handy played a big part in making the blues commercial.
His arrangements defined what many people now recognized as the sound of the blues for the first time.
His work took the blues and shifted it into the hinterland of popular culture.
This shift set in motion many developments.
These developments brought blues music to a wide and eager audience.
They also helped to push individual musicians on into the next generation of blues music.
In short, a random encounter with the blues opened up Handy’s life to this new flow of musical current.
His role in the blues’ popularization was significant and of enduring worth.
W. C. Handy’s Key Compositions and Success
Leading the way were the first widely published compositions written by W C Handy.
His first hit, ‘Memphis Blues’, published in 1912, is well regarded by aficionados of blues history.
They consider it the song that introduced the genre to the masses.
The song was an instant success.
The song’s first line was so bold and unusual.
This was likely because of the opening – ‘Memphis is where I’m stayin’/Memphis is where I was born’.
It combined ragtime with blues in ways that pleasantly surprised audience members.
His next success was ‘St Louis Blues’ (1914) – Handy’s most well-known and popular song and also his most enduring.
It incorporated both traditional blues and a tango rhythm.
In a typically daring move, he had paired one blues note with a dominant six-note pattern.
The St Louis Blues became a standard and played the world over.
Soon after, numerous artists recorded the song.
In 1916, Handy was inspired by Memphis’s legendary Beale Street.
This famous African American cultural, restaurant, and entertainment district still exists.
Handy wrote ‘Beale Street Blues’ as a tribute to the music and life the street represented.
Handy’s music injected the blues onto the cultural landscape.
The success of ‘Beale Street Blues’ demonstrated yet again that the blues belonged to Memphis.
Handy’s songs helped to popularize the blues, bringing the music into the popular mainstream.
His songs became standard repertoire, and blues gained in influence as it expanded into the white mainstream.
And it was through this exposure that the blues distinguished itself.
The popularity of the blues depended upon its cross-cultural appeal.
Handy’s success also opened doors to other blues musicians.
His compositions revealed to the white recording industry that blues music had commercial possibilities.
This encouraged record companies to sign and promote blues artists.
Handy also helped to disseminate and popularize blues through his collections of blues songs.
He often re-wrote the lyrics to make them more acceptable to white audiences.
In the meantime, W C Handy’s early hits made a strong impact.
Songs like ‘Memphis Blues’, ‘St Louis Blues’ and ‘Beale Street Blues’ were influential.
They had a major impact on the popularity of the blues.
Handy’s innovation, his popularity and his commercial success helped send blues music all over the world.
He has left a legacy that still inspires musicians today.
Handy’s Role in Popularizing the Blues
Specifically, W C Handy was an American composer and musician who promoted blues nationwide.
Poverty in the South of the United States inspired blues musicians who grew up there.
This form of music is a combination of African-American and European styles.
It gained wide popularity when Handy’s original compositions became world famous.
These compositions, such as ‘St Louis Blues’, were distributed as sheet music.
This allowed people who had never heard of blues before to access them.
And he didn’t just write tunes – Handy was a canny self-publicist.
He began publishing blues sheet music – so that the music could be spread to every corner of the world.
His sheet music means that the blues didn’t stay strictly an oral tradition.
He helped preserve and publish blues songs for a whole generation to come.
Many tunes were transmitted from ear to ear.
Handy’s sheet music finally circulated them more broadly.
This established a standard for blues publication as it evolved.
But Handy also laid the path and became an inspiration for others.
His lyrics, arrangements, and tunes are standards.
Countless musicians have covered them.
From Bessie Smith to Louis Armstrong, musicians drew from his songbook, and he provided a foothold for their careers.
His music helped to hinge the blues and jazz.
He also had a powerful impact on the music industry, as his reputation demonstrated the commercial viability of the blues.
As a consequence, other publishers began to invest in blues music.
Handy’s success paved the way for a more widespread dissemination of the genre.
Handy’s influence was international.
His music reached Europe, where musicians took inspiration from it.
Blues crossed the ocean to become ‘world music’, among other things, as a result of Handy’s influential activities.
His melodies were played by orchestras and bands.
Handy certainly helped to popularize the blues.
He exposed the genre to a wide, mainstream audience.
This forever secured the blues’ place in American music history.
He was instrumental in moving the blues forward for the generation of musicians who followed.
The music that Handy helped to popularize served as a springboard.
It led to the development of the blues as a major musical genre.
W.C. Handy’s Challenges and Triumphs
W.C. Handy faced many challenges.
Born in 1873 in Alabama, he grew up in a segregated South.
Racial discrimination was a constant obstacle.
Despite his love for music, his parents discouraged it, viewing it as sinful.
Handy persevered, learning to play various instruments.
He worked odd jobs to support his musical education.
His first major challenge came in 1896.
While traveling with Mahara’s Minstrels, he encountered severe racial prejudice.
They faced threats and were often denied lodging.
Handy remained determined, focusing on his music.
In 1903, Handy had a transformative experience in a Mississippi train station.
He heard a man playing the blues on a guitar.
This encounter inspired Handy to incorporate blues into his compositions.
However, mainstream recognition was slow due to racial barriers.
Handy faced financial struggles and skepticism from white audiences. Yet, he persisted, believing in the power of the blues. In 1912, he published “Memphis Blues,” marking a significant triumph. The song’s success opened doors for him in the music industry.
Handy faced another challenge with “St. Louis Blues” in 1914.
Skeptics doubted its appeal, but it became one of his most famous works.
Despite ongoing racial discrimination, Handy’s talent could not be ignored.
He established his publishing company, ensuring control over his music.
Handy faced personal challenges, including blindness in his later years.
Still, he continued to influence music, mentoring young artists.
His legacy is a testament to his resilience and passion.
W.C. Handy’s journey was filled with obstacles.
However, his determination and talent allowed him to triumph over adversity, cementing his place in music history.
W. C. Handy’s Legacy and Influence
W C Handy put the blues on the map.
He connected the musical worlds of black and white America.
He composed songs that incorporated elements of traditional African-American music for popular audiences.
He also wrote beloved classics such as ‘St Louis Blues’.
Lots of musicians since have followed in Handy’s footsteps.
His work established much of the groundwork for modern blues.
Jazz, rock, and R&B owe Handy a lot.
The blues scales he favored became a standard in much of modern music.
This is Handy’s legacy.
He is enshrined in the Blues Hall of Fame, even posthumously.
He won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
His work gets a few lines in some music history books.
Memphis declares W C Handy Boulevard, and the city’s annual blues festivals take place in W C Handy Park.
They commemorate his life and work at the W C Handy Home and Museum.
The museum is in Florence, Alabama, his birthplace.
Handy’s reach extends to education.
His compositions are taught and analyzed in music schools.
His hand provides much of the evidence for the characteristics of blues structure.
His music is still performed everywhere by contemporary musicians.
They cover his work in a continuous, unbroken fashion to the present day.
In addition to the parades and monuments, we can add the many posthumous biographies.
These represent his influence on music.
The films and documentaries highlight his life and contributions to American music.
The news and historical accounting considers Handy a self-made man amused by his own fortune.
Handy still casts a long shadow.
His music inspired modern forms.
New generations are still mining his work.
The fruits of W C Handy’s labor will always be central to the history of the blues.
Conclusion
W.C. Handy’s contribution to the blues is undeniable and ongoing.
It brought regional sounds mainstream.
Handy’s compositions brought the blues to an audience beyond the hearth fires and juke joints.
“St Louis Blues” and “Memphis Blues’ are classics.
Handy intersected folk tradition and popular music.
He documented and saved the Blue’s heritage.
He helped ensure its survival and growth.
Handy’s contribution went far beyond composition.
He inspired generations of musicians and music industries.
Blues music evolved but never forgot him.
He is a cornerstone in American music.
Handy was a trailblazer in the blues.
His contributions assured the flourishing and modernization of music.
His music will live forever.
The story of W.C. Handy is an inspiration, a tale of innovation and passion.
He created a cultural phenomenon and a timeless musical story that resonates throughout the generations and across the centuries.
W.C. Handy, the Father of the Blues, is remembered.