W.C. Handy - Biography
By J Poet
W. C. Handy, is aptly named the “Father of the Blues.” Before Handy African American folk music, or slave music, had no name. he “translated” it for whites and other people with European musical ears, described its 12 bar pattern with its flatted “blue” notes, and wrote some of the most enduring blues standards including “St. Louis Blues,” “Yellow Dog Blues’ and “The Memphis Blues.” He set up the first successful African American music publishing company, Handy Brothers Music, and his compositions introduced the blues to the world. His autobiography, Father of the Blues, was made into a successful film with Nat King Cole in the lead role and he remained active in the music world until his death in 1958. He was honored by a USPS commemorative stamp in 1969, inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, and inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983. He was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993.
Handy was the son and grandson of slaves, born in Alabama in 1873. His paternal grandfather, William Wise Handy, was a Methodist minister as was his father. At 12 he worked odd jobs to buy a guitar, but his father considered it a “devil instrument” and made him trade it in for a dictionary. Handy’s father did pay for his son’s music lessons, however, on the more Christian organ. Handy studied music at the Florence District School for Negroes and learned to play Wagner, Bizet, and Verdi and to sing in all keys, measures, and movements. Behind his father’s back he bought a used cornet and took lessons from its former owner.
Handy dropped out of school to play in a minstrel show that went bankrupt shortly after he joined. He went back home and graduated from the Huntsville Teachers Agricultural and Mechanical College with a teaching credential. He moved to Birmingham but when he discovered teacher’s only got 25$ a month, he took a job in a factory. Nights he played in the Lauzette Quartet, which he founded. The quarter headed to Chicago, to play at the World’s Fair, but the fair was postponed and the band broke up. He wound up homeless in Saint Louis, and worked on a road gang.
When he was 18 he moved to Evansville, Kentucky, and got his first professional gigs, playing with local bras bands. He worked days as a janitor, in a building owned by a German singing society. He befriended a professor and received private training, what he later called his “post-graduate course in vocal music.”
At 23, he joined W. A. Mahara’s Minstrels and became the troupe’s bandleader, arranger and featured soloist. He stayed with them eight years. When not on the road, he was a music teacher and bandmaster at Huntsville Teachers College. In 1909, Handy moved to Memphis where Edward H. “Boss” Crump was running for mayor. Crump needed a campaign band. and hired handy and his new group. He wrote “Mr. Crump” as a campaign song; after Crump was elected he changed the lyrics and called the tune “Memphis Blues.” He signed over the publishing rights for $50.00 and really got the blues when the sheet music became a best seller. It was the first time the word ‘blues’ had been used in a song title.
Handy sat down at his desk and banged out “St. Louis Blues” in one night, intent on making back some of the money he’d lost on “Memphis Blues.” The song became a hit, as did “Jogo Blues,” “Yellow Dog Blues,” “Joe Turner Blues,” and “Beale Street Blues.” With another songwriter, Harry Pace, Handy founded the Pace & Handy Music Company in Memphis, to capitalize on his hits. In 1917, Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis made several singles for Columbia Records In 1918, Handy and Pace moved the company to 1457 Broadway in New York City. When Pace left, the company became Handy Brothers Music and it still has offices at 1457 Broadway in 2008. In 1920, Mamie Smith had a hit with Perry Bradford’s “Crazy Blues” and the blues became a huge new niche market for both black and white listeners. Handy’s copy writes of blues tunes made him a wealthy man and he continued making singles for Paramount and Okeah as well as his own label, Handy Brothers Music and the company started by his former partner Harry Pace, Black Swan Records.
In 1926, he edited: Blues: An Anthology and in 1928 promoted the first all black concert at Carnegie Hall, an evening of blues. He published three more books of blues compositions and history as well, Negro Authors and Composers of the United States (1935), W.C. Handy’s Collection of Negro Spirituals (1938), and Unsung Americans Sung (1944 Handy Brothers Music.) He remained a successful publisher and songwriter until his death in 1958. His autobiography Father of the Blues, was made into a film with Nat King Cole starring as Handy.
Handy recorded infrequently and most of his music is currently out of print save: W. C. Handy’s Memphis Blues Band (1994 Memphis Archives), which includes jazz and jig band flavored takes of “St. Louis Blue,’ “Yellow Dog Blues” and “Fuzzy Wuzzy Rag” and Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy (1954 Columbia, 1996 Columbia) which includes Handy on a few tracks and a brief interview with Handy by album producer George Avakian.
