This day in history - September 28th 1912 The Blues are born
Today the blues became a quintessential American musical style with the publication of "Memphis Blues", by William Christopher Handy. As a teenager handy joined a local band where he learned to play the coronet . While living in Florence, Alabama he took work on a "shovel Brigade" in a coal furnace and was introduced to the unique chant songs of the workers. His boyhood on a rural farm living amid the songs of the whipporwill and his time spent working on the shovel brigade influenced his buregeoning ear for music and would later be credited by him as primary influences on his own musical style. Working several odd jobs, from teaching to pipe fitting Handy always returned to music organizing several small orchestras and teaching the members to read music. One of these was called the Lauzetta Quartet.
The Quartet traveled to the Chicago Worlds fair in 1892 but upon arrival learned it had been postponed for a year. Disheartened the group traveled to Saint Louis, disbanded and went their separate ways leaving Handy to travel alone to Evansville, Indiana where his future wife Elizabeth Price and his musical fate awaited. Once there Handy took jobs in local bands and within a year found himself playing coronet at the Worlds Fair in 1893, delayed but back on track. During this time Handy also traveled extensively in Mississippi and in large part due to his remarkable memory was able to transcribe the music being played there.
In 1900 Handy took a job as music teacher at the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes. His time there failed to live up to his expectations as the college focused on European music and disregarded American musical styles as inferior. By 1902 Handy had enough and left the college to work in bands and in minstral shows, which payed better and offered a measure of creative freedom.
Up till this point Handy was searching for his path in life with little success but small nudges were always pushing him in the direction of what was becoming the Blues. In 1903 while awaiting the arrival of a train in Tutwiler, Mississippi handy had the following encounter...
"A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept... As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars....The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard."
Shortly after, while playing to a crowd in Cleveland Mississippi Handy received a note asking for some of "our peoples music" and allowed a local band to join him on stage where they performed what handy would describe as "haunting" music. Handy began to notice this same musical style in other areas and by diverse groups within the negro community of the Mississippi Delta, from Square dance callers to blind singers who sold their songs on street corners, all with the same characteristics and is the roots of Blues music.
In 1909 Handy and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee (not yet the musical hub it soon would be) where he established himself on Beal Street and dug deeper into this new form of music when he came to the attention of a candidate for Mayor, Edward Crump. Handy wrote a campaign song titled "Mr. Crump" which assisted the Candidate in winning the blak vote in Memphis. Three years later this song would be renamed "Memphis Blues" The first true formalized blues song in History and the song credited as an inspiration for the Foxtrot.
By 1914 Handy had become a successful band leader and influential participant in the birth of the Blues when he published his most famous work "Saint Louis Blues" which crossed over and became a pop hit and a standard in Jazz musicians repertoire, being performed by such diverse artists as Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Glenn Miller and the Boston Pops Orchestra.
With this William Christopher Handys place in Blues history was ensured and thanks to his popularizing of this uniquely negro musical style, Rock and Roll could come into existence and American Roots music, which had previously been seen as inferior to European music found a new global audience that transcended racial boundries and is being studied and appreciated to this day.
The Quartet traveled to the Chicago Worlds fair in 1892 but upon arrival learned it had been postponed for a year. Disheartened the group traveled to Saint Louis, disbanded and went their separate ways leaving Handy to travel alone to Evansville, Indiana where his future wife Elizabeth Price and his musical fate awaited. Once there Handy took jobs in local bands and within a year found himself playing coronet at the Worlds Fair in 1893, delayed but back on track. During this time Handy also traveled extensively in Mississippi and in large part due to his remarkable memory was able to transcribe the music being played there.
In 1900 Handy took a job as music teacher at the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes. His time there failed to live up to his expectations as the college focused on European music and disregarded American musical styles as inferior. By 1902 Handy had enough and left the college to work in bands and in minstral shows, which payed better and offered a measure of creative freedom.
Up till this point Handy was searching for his path in life with little success but small nudges were always pushing him in the direction of what was becoming the Blues. In 1903 while awaiting the arrival of a train in Tutwiler, Mississippi handy had the following encounter...
"A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept... As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars....The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard."
Shortly after, while playing to a crowd in Cleveland Mississippi Handy received a note asking for some of "our peoples music" and allowed a local band to join him on stage where they performed what handy would describe as "haunting" music. Handy began to notice this same musical style in other areas and by diverse groups within the negro community of the Mississippi Delta, from Square dance callers to blind singers who sold their songs on street corners, all with the same characteristics and is the roots of Blues music.
In 1909 Handy and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee (not yet the musical hub it soon would be) where he established himself on Beal Street and dug deeper into this new form of music when he came to the attention of a candidate for Mayor, Edward Crump. Handy wrote a campaign song titled "Mr. Crump" which assisted the Candidate in winning the blak vote in Memphis. Three years later this song would be renamed "Memphis Blues" The first true formalized blues song in History and the song credited as an inspiration for the Foxtrot.
By 1914 Handy had become a successful band leader and influential participant in the birth of the Blues when he published his most famous work "Saint Louis Blues" which crossed over and became a pop hit and a standard in Jazz musicians repertoire, being performed by such diverse artists as Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Glenn Miller and the Boston Pops Orchestra.
With this William Christopher Handys place in Blues history was ensured and thanks to his popularizing of this uniquely negro musical style, Rock and Roll could come into existence and American Roots music, which had previously been seen as inferior to European music found a new global audience that transcended racial boundries and is being studied and appreciated to this day.