November 16, 2023: AmericanStudying the Blues: W.C. Handy

[150 yearsago this week, the great W.C. Handywas born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Handy and other icons of theBlues, leading up to a special weekend post on some contemporary Blues greats!]

On threevital texts through which we can trace the legacy of thebirthday boy and “Father ofthe Blues.”

1)     “The Memphis Blues” (1909/1912):I could easily highlight different influential Handy songs for all three ofthese, but wanted to include a couple other texts that reflect his trulymultilayered work and legacy. “Memphis” was his first hit, initially written asa 1909 campaign song for Memphis mayoral candidate Edward“Boss” Crump and then released on its own (through the sheet music,how songs tended to be released in the early 20th century) in 1912.It established some of Handy’skey characteristics, such as his incorporation of Black folk musicalongside other forms like ragtime and classical and his hugely influentialthree-line stanzas, of which helater wrote, “I adopted thestyle of making a statement, repeating the statement in the second line, andthen telling in the third line why the statement was made.” If thatsounds like quintessential blues songwriting, that’s precisely the point—and akey layer of Handy’s legacy.

2)     Blues—AnAnthology (1926): Again, I could easily dedicate all three of these entriesto Handy songs, many of which were likewise named for cities (such as his evenbigger follow-up hit, 1914’s “Saint Louis Blues”). Butwhat made Handy so truly influential and so accurately the “Father of the Blues”was that he was as much a collector and compiler and advocate for this emerginggenre as he was a founding practitioner of it, and we can see that clearly inhis 1926 anthology, in which he published the “complete words and music of 53great songs.” As Wall Street lawyer and ally and champion of Black artists AbbeNiles writes in the opening paragraph of his Introduction to the anthology,the Blues “is a subject as to which Handy remains the source and fountainheadof information,” and we’re very fortunate that he set down so much of thatfoundational info in this text.

3)     UnsungAmericans Sung (1944): Handy’s multilayered career as bothartist/songwriter/performer and archivist/advocate continued for his remainingthree decades of life, but as time went on he also became more and more clearlya leader of and spokesperson for the African American community more broadly.That was never more apparent than in his unique and stunning 1944 editedcollection Unsung Americans Sung,which like the anthology collected the music and lyrics to a number ofimportant songs, but which in this case complemented those songs with extensiveliterary tributes to important African American figures from Crispus Attucksand Phillis Wheatley to Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to Paul LaurenceDunbar and Langston Hughes. That I only learned about this book while researchingthis post is both frustrating and a reminder that there’s still so much tolearn and share, about hugely influential individuals like W.C. Handy and aboutthe whole of American history.

Last Bluesicon tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Blues figures or contexts you’d highlight?

PPS. On Twitter, Blues musician and writer Brien McMullen shares this excellent thread of thoughts on Handy!