William Christopher Handy will forever be remembered as “The Father of the Blues.” It was Handy who was most responsible for taking this regional folk music of the American South and turning it into another form of popular American music.
As a brilliant composer, cornetist, and pioneering music publisher, Handy acted as the vital cultural bridge that carried the raw, oral traditions of the Mississippi Delta into the global mainstream. His formal musical training allowed him to accurately transcribe, codify, and orchestrate the idiosyncratic twelve-bar blues structures that had previously gone unrecorded. By establishing the first highly successful African-American-owned music publishing house, Handy transformed a localized folk art form into a commercial juggernaut, forever rewriting the trajectory of twentieth-century popular music.
Handy was working as a popular minstrel bandleader when he heard blues music for the first time while stopping over in the Mississippi Delta. Handy would eventually write the first popular blues songs, “Memphis Blues,” ”St. Louis Blues,” Yellow Dog Blues,” and “Hesitating Blues.”
Handy was born in Florence, Alabama, in 1873. His father was pastor of a church in a nearby town. Handy’s upbringing was strict and his pious father viewed secular music and anything associated with it as instruments of the devil. It was with much secrecy then, that young W.C. Handy purchased his first instrument, a guitar. When his father found the guitar, Handy was instructed to return it. Handy moved on to organ and eventually acquired a cornet, the instrument with which he would be forever associated.
Handy joined a local band as a cornetist during his teens-a fact that he kept hidden from his parents. During the 1890s Handy traveled around Alabama in various bands playing the minstrel music that was popular at the time and working odd jobs to make ends meet. He eventually became the leader of the Mahara’s Colored Minstrels and toured The South with that band for three years.
From 1900-1902, Handy was recruited as a music teacher at the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes. Handy’s frustration with the college’s emphasis on European classical music and apparent lack of appreciation for American styles led to his resignation from his post.
Handy quickly rejoined his old band and set off on the road again. It was while on tour with the band in the Mississippi Delta that Handy heard the blues, a music that he described at the time as “the weirdest music I had ever heard.” Handy studied the blues as played by locals during subsequent visits to the Mississippi Delta, and by the time Handy and his band had relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1909, the blues was part of his repertoire. Handy wrote what is often coined as the first blues song, “Memphis Blues,” as a theme song for a Memphis mayoral candidate, Edward Crump. The song was originally titled, “Mr. Crump.”
Handy wrote subsequent songs with “blues” in the title such as “Beale Street Blues” and “St. Louis Blues” and became one of the first African-Americans to become wealthy by publishing songs. Handy moved his publishing business to New York City, in 1917, and set up offices in Times Square.
In early 1917, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band had made the first jazz recording with a side titled, “Livery Stable Blues.” Handy organized a band called Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis to make his own recordings for Columbia. The resulting sides contained music that was closer to blues than that which was recorded by jazz bands. Handy was not enamored with this new music, jazz, and tried to stick to tradition.
Handy recorded for various labels from 1917 to 1924 and recorded versions of his own songs, “Memphis Blues,” “Yellow Dog Blues,” and “St. Louis Blues,” among others. Handy’s renditions of these classic tunes are not considered as classics of the era, but they are of tremendous historical rather than aesthetic interest.
Among the limited compilation albums that may be found on Handy’s recordings are “Father of the Blues” (1980) and "Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues" (2003).
Essential Historical Collection: Father of the Blues (1980)
This vital archival collection serves as a definitive audio document of Handy's earliest recording sessions. The tracking brings together rare acoustic and early electrical recordings made by Handy's Orchestra of Memphis, providing an irreplaceable look at how the blues was performed by a structured, syncopated orchestra. While these tracks exhibit the stiff rhythms of the late ragtime era, they offer immense historical insight into how the blues first made its transition from southern streets to commercial shellac.
- Compilation Era: 1917–1924 (Released 1980)
- Label: DRG Records
- Producer: Archival Assembly
- Core Personnel: W.C. Handy (Cornet, Conductor), Handy's Orchestra of Memphis
- Key Historical Tracks: "St. Louis Blues", "Memphis Blues", "Yellow Dog Blues"
Essential Compilation Review: Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues - W.C. Handy (2003)
Part of the critically acclaimed public television documentary series, this comprehensive release features a meticulously remastered look at Handy's architectural compositions. The album brilliantly balances Handy's own rare, primitive band recordings with historic, highly expressive interpretations of his songbook by immediate contemporaries like Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. It stands as a flawless audio blueprint for understanding how Handy's published sheet music came to define the classic blues era.
- Released: September 2003
- Label: Columbia Records / Legacy
- Producer: Martin Scorsese, Steve Berkowitz
- Core Contributors: W.C. Handy, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith
- Key Tracks: "St. Louis Blues" (Bessie Smith & Louis Armstrong), "Beale Street Blues", "Ole Miss Rag"
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