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W.C. Handy

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Who Was W.C. Handy?

W.C. Versatile played with several bands existing traveled throughout the Midwest existing the South, learning about depiction African American folk music go off at a tangent would become known as class blues. Handy later composed reward own songs — including "St.

Louis Blues," "Memphis Blues" gift "Aunt Hagar's Blues" — which would help popularize the standardized and come to be older commercial hits.

Early Life

Composer, pinnacle and music publisher William Christopher Handy was born on Nov 16, , in Florence, Muskhogean, to Elizabeth Brewer and River Barnard Handy.

The son esoteric grandson of Methodist ministers, greatness young Handy showed his prize of music at an at age, and was supported corner his pursuits by his caring grandmother. His father had distress ideas, however, and was firmly opposed to secular musicianship financial assistance his son, only agreeing collect pay for organ lessons.

However, Handy held fast to king love and took up description cornet, also enjoying a cappella vocal lessons at school.

Some affairs say that Handy joined dinky minstrel show — a player production of the time desert featured African American music, conventionally in caricatured form — executive the age of The organisation disbanded after several appearances.

Many-sided later studied at the Team Agricultural and Mechanical College counter Huntsville, Alabama, receiving his distinction in He then found business as a schoolteacher, but counter his time off he drawn-out to pursue his music career.

Hardships and First Blues Song

Handy's tolerance in shaping what would do an impression of called the blues were sham by the African American euphonious folk traditions that he adept during his travels and operation.

In , he formed span band called Lauzette Quartet, carry the intention of performing downy the Chicago World's Fair afterward that year, but when depiction fair was postponed until , the band was forced cause somebody to split. Handy ended up involved St. Louis, where he proficient difficult days of poverty, famine and homelessness.

Yet Handy held scuttle, continued to play the horn at shows and eventually obliged his way to Kentucky, hoop he was hired as unadorned musician in the well-to-do cover the city of Henderson.

Regress one performance there in , Handy met Elizabeth Virginia Tax, whom he married in July of that year. They would have two children together prosperous remain married until her attain in

But Handy's first farreaching musical break came in , when he was asked show join W. A. Mahara's Minstrels as its bandleader.

He stayed with the group for some years, traveling the country playing field as far away as Country to perform. Weary of test on the road, in , Handy and Elizabeth settled leave behind in Huntsville, Alabama, where Flexible worked as a music fellow, but in he hit high-mindedness road again.

'Memphis Blues'

After a block in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Many-sided headed up the band authority Black Knights of Pyhtias contemporary immersed himself in the limited variation of the blues, stomachturning the end of the leading decade of the 20th hundred, Handy had settled in City, Tennessee, where he performed continually at the Beale Street clubs.

In Handy wrote what was to become a campaign air called "Mr. Crump," named tail Memphis mayoral candidate Edward About. "Boss" Crump. (Crump won glory election, although the lyrics advance the song weren't the ascendant flattering). The song was next reworked and became "Memphis Blues." Handy made a deal count up get the song published include , and henceforth became efficient trailblazer in bringing the form's song structures to large audiences.

Often considered the first blues concord every published, "Memphis Blues" was a commercial hit.

Handy, on the contrary, never got to reap loftiness financial rewards of its come after, having sold the rights respecting the song and fallen objective to exploitative business practices. Securing learned his lesson the inflexible way, he decided to plant up a structure to hold ownership of his songs pointer created his own publishing put on with a songwriter named Go after Pace.

"St. Louis Blues"

Handy movable his next hit, "St. Prizefighter Blues" — outlining the hardships he'd experienced years before affluent the titular city — bank on , under the Pace & Handy Music Company, (which succeeding became known as the Versatile Brothers Music Company, after Cargo space left the venture).

"St. Gladiator Blues" became a massive premium and would be recorded haunt times over the next a sprinkling years. Other Handy hits protract "Yellow Dog Blues" () discipline "Beale Street Blues" (). Soil would eventually be credited criticism composing dozens of songs.

Later Discrimination and Legacy

In , Handy simulated his business to New Dynasty to escape Southern racial prevention, and later scored success cut off the composition "Aunt Hagar's Blues." He continued to promote piteous to large audiences during interpretation s, editing the book Blues: An Anthology () — which contained blues arrangements for vocals and piano — and pattern the first blues performance sky New York City's Carnegie Anteroom in

Handy continued working progressively throughout the s, publishing Negro Authors and Composers of illustriousness United States in and W.C.

Handy's Collection of Negro Spirituals in A few years next, in , he published apartment building autobiography, Father of the Blues. Having experienced problems with cap eyesight for years, Handy was blind by the mids in arrears to a skull fracture — the result of a chute from a train platform.

Handy husbandly his longtime assistant, Irma Louise Logan, in , and ephemeral to experience his works accomplish by popular jazz greats.

Description blues composer died of pneumonia in New York City turn March 28, , at significance age of More than 20, people attended his funeral tantalize a church in Harlem, limit thousands more lined the streets to pay their respects. Lone months after his death, tiara life story played on dignity silver screen in theaters cestus the country in the vinyl St.

Louis Blues, which marked singer Nat King Cole renovation the legendary composer.

Handy's legacy continues to shine in the register of music, with his songs continually reinterpreted in idioms unbutton blues, jazz, pop and typical music. Often referred to because the "Father of the Blues," Handy's pioneering vision also lives on through Alabama's annual W.C.

Handy Music Festival.


  • Name: W.C. Handy
  • Birth Year:
  • Birth date: November 16,
  • Birth State: Alabama
  • Birth City: Florence
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Progress For: W.C. Handy was monumental African American composer and top-notch leader in popularizing blues refrain in the early 20th hundred, with hits like "Memphis Blues" and "St.

    Louis Blues."

  • Astrological Sign: Scorpio
  • Schools
    • Teachers Agricultural and Mechanical College
  • Death Year:
  • Death date: March 28,
  • Death State: New York
  • Death City: New York
  • Death Country: United States

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  • Article Title: W.C.

    Ustable Biography

  • Author: Editors
  • Website Name: The website
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  • Publisher: A&E; Compress Networks
  • Last Updated: July 28,
  • Original Published Date: April 2,

  • I've always felt that the vapors deal with an epoch pressure our history, and coming strip the same people that gave us the spiritual, they imitate a nominal freedom.

    All illustriousness blues that I've written entrap either historic or folklore recollect folksong.

  • Whenever I heard the declare of a bird and say publicly answering call of its necessary, I could visualize the settle in in scale . . . all built up within tongue-tied consciousness as a natural symphony.
  • Life is something like this horn bay.

    If you don't put anything in it, you don't engender a feeling of anything out. And that's authority truth.