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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 9/27/23: Memphis Blues [1]

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Date: 2023-09-27

Happy 111th Anniversary to Memphis Blues, by W. C. Handy, considered to be the first published blues song.

Handy was known as the father of the blues.

Born in Florence, Alabama on November 16, 1873, William Christopher Handy became interested in music at an early age. His father, a minister, felt that music was an unwise career choice for him and, indeed, the young Handy experienced years of poverty and homelessness at first. But he persisted, and in 1892 he earned a degree from the Teachers’ Agricultural and Mechanical College in Huntsville, Alabama. This allowed him to work as a teacher, while performing music during school vacations. Having always immersed himself in the African American music of his era, Handy eventually began writing songs describing the hardships he had experienced. In 1912 he published “Memphis Blues,” now considered the first blues song. Although it was a hit, he got very little money for it, so he set up the Handy Brothers Music Company, which in 1914 published his “St. Louis Blues.” This song was a bigger hit than “Memphis Blues,” and this time he received more of the profits. Other songs by Handy are “Yellow Dog Blues” and “Beale Street Blues.” After moving his company to New York City in 1918, he continued to write songs, and edited a book called Blues: An Anthology (1926). He is credited with organizing the first blues concert in Carnegie Hall, which took place in 1928. By the 1940s, he was blind, but continued to publish collections of blues songs and spirituals. When he died (on March 28, 1958), more than 20,000 people attended his funeral. Only a few months later, the film St. Louis Blues, starring Nat King Cole, paid tribute to Handy’s career.

Handy was a musicologist.

In 1902, Handy traveled throughout Mississippi, listening to various styles of popular black music. The state was mostly rural and music was part of the culture, especially in cotton plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Musicians usually played guitar or banjo or, to a much lesser extent, piano. Handy's remarkable memory enabled him to recall and transcribe the music he heard in his travels. After a dispute with AAMC President Councill, Handy resigned his teaching position to return to the Mahara Minstrels and tour the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. In 1903, he became the director of a black band organized by the Knights of Pythias in Clarksdale, Mississippi.[2] Handy and his family lived there for six years. During this time, he had several formative experiences that he later recalled as influential in his developing musical style. In 1903, while waiting for a train in Tutwiler, Mississippi in the Mississippi Delta, Handy overheard a black man playing a steel guitar using a knife as a slide.[8][10] About 1905, while playing a dance in Cleveland, Mississippi, Handy was given a note asking for "our native music".[11] He played an old-time Southern melody but was asked if a local colored band could play a few numbers. Handy assented, and three young men with well-worn instruments began to play.[12][13] Research by Elliott Hurwitt for the Mississippi Blues Trail identified the leader of the band in Cleveland as Prince McCoy.[14][15] In his autobiography, Handy described the music they played: “They struck up one of those over and over strains that seem to have no beginning and certainly no ending at all. The strumming attained a disturbing monotony, but on and on it went, a kind of stuff associated with [sugar] cane rows and levee camps. Thump-thump-thump went their feet on the floor. It was not really annoying or unpleasant. Perhaps "haunting" is the better word.”[12][16] Handy also took influence from the square dances held by Mississippi blacks, which typically had music in the G major key. In particular, he picked the same key for his 1914 hit, "Saint Louis Blues".[17][18]

Folks I've just been down, down to Memphis town,

That's where the people smile, smile on you all the while.

Hospitality, they were good to me.

I couldn't spend a dime, and had the grandest time.

I went out a dancing with a Tennessee dear,

They had a fellow there named Handy with a band you should hear

And while the folks gently swayed, all the band folks played Real harmony.

I never will forget the tune that Handy called the Memphis Blues.

Oh yes, them Blues.

They've got a fiddler there that always slickens his hair

And folks he sure do pull some bow.

And when the big Bassoon seconds to the Trombones croon.

It moans just like a sinner on Revival Day, on Revival Day.

Oh that melody sure appealed to me.

Just like a mountain stream rippling on it seemed.

Then it slowly died, with a gentle sigh

Soft as the breeze that whines high in the summer pines.

Hear me people, hear me people, hear I pray,

I'm going to take a million lesson's 'til I learn how to play

Because I seem to hear it yet, simply can't forget

That blue refrain.

There's nothing like the Handy Band that played the Memphis Blues so grand.

Oh play them Blues.

That melancholy strain, that ever haunting refrain

Is like a sweet old sorrow song.

Here comes the very part that wraps a spell around my heart.

It sets me wild to hear that loving tune a gain,

The Memphis Blues.

[END]
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