William Christopher Handy was an American composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. He was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. Handy was born in November 1873, in Florence, Alabama. Handy’s father believed that musical instruments were tools of the devil. Without his parents’ permission, Handy bought his first guitar, which he had seen in a local shop window. Upon seeing the guitar, his father asked him, “What possessed you to bring a sinful thing like that into our Christian home?” and ordered him to “take it back where it came from”, but he also arranged for his son to take organ lessons. The organ lessons did not last long, but Handy moved on to learn to play the cornet. He joined a local band as a teenager, but he kept this fact a secret from his parents. He purchased a cornet from a fellow band member and spent every free minute practicing it.
He worked on a “shovel brigade” at the McNabb furnace, where he learned to use his shovel to make music with the other workers to pass the time. The workers would beat their shovels against hard surfaces in complex rhythms that Handy said were “better to us than the music of a martial drum corps.” Handy would later recall this improvisational spirit as being a formative experience for him, musically: “Southern Negroes sang about everything….They accompany themselves on anything from which they can extract a musical sound or rhythmical effect.” He reflected, “In this way, and from these materials, they set the mood for what we now call Blues.”
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. About 1905, while playing a dance in Cleveland, Mississippi, Handy was given a note asking for “our native music”. He played an old-time Southern melody but was asked if a local coloured band could play a few numbers. Handy assented, and three young men with well-worn instruments began to play. 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. 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”.
In 1909 Handy and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they played in clubs on Beale Street. “The Memphis Blues” was a campaign song written for Edward Crump, the successful Democratic Memphis mayoral candidate in the 1909 election. The other candidates also employed Black musicians for their campaigns. Handy later rewrote the tune and changed its name from “Mr. Crump” to “Memphis Blues.” The 1912 publication of the sheet music of “The Memphis Blues” introduced his style of 12-bar blues; it was credited as the inspiration for the foxtrot by Vernon and Irene Castle, a New York dance team.
In his autobiography, Handy described how he incorporated elements of black folk music into his musical style. The basic three-chord harmonic structure of blues music and the use of flat third and seventh chords in songs played in the major key all originated in vernacular music created for and by impoverished southern blacks. Those notes are now referred to in jazz and blues as blue notes. In 1917, Handy and his publishing business moved to New York City, where he had offices in the Gaiety Theatre in Times Square. By the end of that year, his most successful songs had been published: “Memphis Blues”, “Beale Street Blues”, and “Saint Louis Blues”. That year, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a white New Orleans jazz ensemble, had recorded the first jazz record, introducing the style to a wide segment of the American public. Handy had little fondness for jazz, but bands dove into his repertoire with enthusiasm, making many of these songs jazz standards.
The importance of Handy’s work as a musician and musicologist crossed the boundaries of genre, coming to influence European composers such as Ravel, who was inspired during a stay in Paris of Handy and his orchestra for the composition of the famous Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano known not by chance as the Blues sonata. In 1926 Handy wrote Blues: An Anthology—Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs. It is an early attempt to record, analyze, and describe the blues as an integral part of the South and the history of the United States. To celebrate the publication of the book and to honour Handy, Small’s Paradise in Harlem hosted a party, “Handy Night”, in October 1926 which contained the best of jazz and blues selections provided by Adelaide Hall, Lottie Gee, Maude White, and Chic Collins.
