Print Friendly Version

Photo by Jason Ritter David Robertson, author of W.C. Handy:  The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues _____________________________________________      Before there was Elvis, there was W.C. Handy, “the man who made the blues.” Here is the first major biography in decades of the man who gave us such iconic songs as “St. Louis Blues,” “The Memphis Blues,” and “Beale Street Blues,” and who was responsible, more than any other musician, for bringing the blues into the American mainstream.      David Robertson charts W.C. Handy’s rise from a rural Alabama childhood in the last decades of the nineteenth century to become one of the most celebrated songwriters of the twentieth. The child of former slaves, Handy was first inspired by spirituals and folk songs, and his passion for music pushed him to leave home as a teenager, despite opposition from his preacher father. He soon found his way to St. Louis, where he spent a winter sleeping on cobblestone docks before lucking into a job with an Indiana brass band. It was in a minstrel show, playing to racially mixed audiences across the country, that he got his first real exposure as a professional musician, but it was in Memphis, where he settled in 1905, that he hit his full stride as a composer. There, Handy frequented the famous saloons and music halls of Beale Street and composed his legendary songs. By the time of his death in 1958, at the age of eighty-five, he had become a major influence on pop culture, his music recorded by countless musicians, from Bessie Smith to Django Reinhardt.      Robertson weaves a rich tapestry of the worlds Handy inhabited: the post-Reconstruction South; the ministrel shows in all their racial ambiguity; the mysterious, forbidding Mississippi Delta; Memphis, with its jumping music scene; and New York’s Tin Pan Alley. At once a testament to the power of song and a chronicle of race and black music in America, W.C. Handy’s life story is in many ways the story of the birth of our country's indigenous culture—and a riveting must-read for anyone interested in the history of American music.#      In a July 25, 2009 interview with Jerry Jazz Musician associate editor Peter Maita, Robertson discusses the life and impact of the seminal blues musician, W.C. Handy. * Interview Topics Handy's earliest childhood influences Why did Handy choose to play the cornet? Popular music in the south at the time of his childhood Handy's relationship with his father Handy's involvement in minstrel shows Experiences in St. Louis John Phillip Sousa's influence Memphis and New Orleans musical rivalry "I would not play jazz if I could" What ways did Handy and James Reese Europe inspire each other? Why was "Mister Crump" considered to be the first published blues? Handy loses the copyrights to "The Memphis Blues" Handy and his "St. Louis Blues" Marion Harris popularizes the "St. Louis Blues" The start of the Pace and Handy Music Company Pace splits with Handy to form Black Swan Records Handy's later years Jelly Roll Morton's harsh words regarding Handy What was Handy's biggest contribution to the blues musically? The current generation's viewpoint of Handy Which was more important: the music he created, or the popularization of the music he created? Handy's lasting image as the "Father of the Blues" David Robertson's five favorite versions of the "St. Louis Blues" * About David Robertson Who was your childhood hero? Critical acclaim for the book * W.C. Handy _____ "Born just eight years after the end of the Civil War, and living into the year that Memphis resident Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Army, Handy in his life and career embodied both the popular culture and particularly the popular music of the United States from the late nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century. As an American composer, and as an African American individual, he had memories spanning from the experience of his parents talking about slavery in pre-Civil War Alabama to the triumph of his own prosperous old age. Loaded with honors and a social acquaintance with U.S. presidents such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Handy finally came to a benign neglect. It was, like Handy's typical day stately promenading toward his office on Beale Avenue, a remarkable walk through American history and culture." - David Robertson _____ The Memphis Blues , by W.C. Handy Preservation Band _______________________________________________________ PM   Growing up in Florence, Alabama, what were some of Handy's earliest childhood influences? DR  As with many practical blues artists of his era, the church was predominantly his earliest influence. It's important to note that Handy was not only the son, but also the grandson of prominent African Methodist Episcopal ministers of the northern Alabama community in which he was raised. As a child, he would be at church as the minister's son at least twice a week, where he would listen to the beautiful music of the congregation – unaccompanied by instruments. PM  Did a specific person introduce him to music? DR  Handy called himself, the "Father of the Blues," so if he was, he would have had many of the archetypal blues experiences, and surely the most archetypal of the blues experiences is to be told growing up that the blues is the "devil's music." Handy's influence growing up in Alabama was classical music, which he learned at the school for African American children he attended. But, let's not forget the devil. There was a local street musician that Handy, without the knowledge of his father or the church members, actively sought out – and that musician was playing a very early version of the blues. Special Collections, University of Memphis Handy, age nineteen, dressed in the uniform of his Hampton Cornet Band * "There was a French horn concealed in the breast of the blue jay. The tappings of the woodpecker were to me the reverberations of the snare drum. The bullfrog supplied an effective bass. In the raucous call of the distant crow I would hear the jazz motif." - W.C. Handy on how he learned melody as a child _____ Sweet Child , by W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band PM  The instrument he chose, the cornet, was considered a novelty instrument at the time. Why did decide on playing that? DR  During the latter part of the 19th century, the cornet was the equivalent of the electric guitar for young male musicians of the 1950's and 1960's. Just as the guitar was a novelty during the 1950's and 1960's, so was the cornet of the 19th century. This was also the heyday of the marching brass band, in which the cornet had a prominent place. So, just like some kid in the 1950's might have picked up the electric guitar because it was new and fun and you could be the frontman of the band, so Handy picked up the cornet. PM  In addition to the brass music, what other music was popular in the south at the time of his childhood? DR  It was as though there was music for two different worlds – just as white people and people of color lived socially and politically apart. Outside of the church, the music among the white population was predominantly genteel, which consisted of a brass band with some white blues coming in. The music for people of color would have been the early black blues, as well as brass bands. There were a large number of African American brass bands performing in the south – which Handy himself did later on as an adult. There was also the folk music that was the prototype of the blues floating around. PM  Handy's father pretty much disowns him for becoming a musician, even going as far as saying, "Son I'd rather see you in a hearse. I'd rather follow you to the graveyard than to hear you had become a musician." DR  Oh yeah, I mean you hear that and you think that that's too good to be true, but that is what the reverend Charles Handy said to his son. Handy's experience was typical among those who chose to play jazz or blues music. He stepped outside the musical boundaries the family and church that raised him was comfortable in. What says a lot about Handy's father is that after Handy gained fame and praise for the artistry of his music, he went out of his way to seek out his son and say how proud he was of him. PM  What earned his father's respect? DR  The Handy's were a very pious, renowned northern Alabama family who were noted for their great industriousness. To be known as a Handy in northern Alabama meant you were a hard worker and that you worked two or three jobs. I think the elder Handy was very impressed by not only how hard his elder son worked on his music, but also how much acclaim and, quite frankly, money that his son was making – including from white people. Handy, front left, in 1900 with the Teachers' Agricultural and Mechanical College band * "Son, I'd rather see you in a hearse. I'd rather follow you to the graveyard than to hear that you had become a musician." - Charles Handy _____ Aunt Hagar's Blues, from the album Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy That Jazz Dance, by W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band Leo Friedman's score, "Coon, Coon, Coon;" an example of the racist songs performed in minstrelsys. * "He was, despite a natural geniality, willing 'to fight it out,' in his later words, to bring African American music into national acceptance as art. To do so, he played his horn in the Jim Crow minstrelsy entertainment of the 1890s, at Carnegie Hall in the 1930s, and in television studios of the late 1940s." - David Robertson _____ De Boatman's Dance , from The Early Minstrel Show by David Van Veersblick "Mammy" , a filmed 1930 performance of Al Jolson in a blackface minstrel troupe PM  Handy defended his work in the racially degrading minstrel shows… DR  That makes for an interesting ambiguity and tension which, to say less abstractly, the minstrel shows are still disturbing and edgy 100 years after they cease to be publicly performed. As you said, Handy defended his work in minstrelsy because, as he pointed out quite correctly, that was one of the few opportunities for a person of color to make a living as a professional musician. As I point out in the book, the minstrel shows were disturbing in a double-edged way. They were certainly degrading to people of color and unacceptably racist to us living in the 21st century, but if you look and listen carefully, they were also wonderfully subversive and were a revolutionary approach to communicating the "white man on top, black man on bottom" society. PM  How did the black community respond to his participation in the blackface minstrelsy and the performance of coon songs? DR  Within his immediate circle, very disapprovingly. He married into a prominent family of color in Kentucky, who had an ill-disguised scorn for Handy's work as a minstrel, and it would have been deeply disturbing to his father, who generally disapproved on religious grounds all stage entertainment, particularly blackface minstrelsy. But, on the other hand, the money was good. It must be remembered that the minstrel shows not only drew large white audiences, they also drew large audiences of people of color who came, if for no other reason, because it was one of their few opportunities to see fellow African Americans playing music professionally. PM  Aside from giving him exposure and musical experience, how did his time with the Mahara minstrel troupe affect Handy's career? DR  It affected him because, for the first time, he experienced much of the brute violence of racial discrimination and hatred while traveling by rail throughout the south and west. On multiple occasions he was in danger of being lynched when the train the troupe traveled on rode through a town that did not welcome any person of color. Also, it had to have affected Handy musically because, as some scholars have pointed out, the origin of the blues is even darker and more disturbing than we think, since it includes the racially insensitive coon songs he was a part of. PM  One of Handy's main goals was to create a music that would reach out to both the black and white audiences… DR  Yes…Just as any professional musician, Handy wanted to create music that would be popular to a crossover audience, which would result in greater fame and wealth. But it was not just simply self-aggrandizement. I am convinced that part of his ambition was to fulfill what was called the "Dvorak Prophecy" – which was that a great national, American music was yet to be composed and that, according to Dvorak, the basis of that great national American music would be the folk songs and spirituals of America's African American population. Antonin Dvorak * Symphony No 9 In E Minor Op. 45 ''New World'' - Scherzo: Mo, by Antonin Dvorak Special Collections, University of Memphis W.C. Handy in 1917 with a briefcase full of scores * "He later romanticized his season as a vagabond, remembering in a prosperous old age how he first had heard on the docks of St. Louis the folk songs of his fellow anonymous laborers, such as 'Lookin' for the Bully of the Town,' and how his hungry, dangerous nights on stone bedding had inspired his later poetic beginning to the 'St. Louis Blues' – I hate to see that evening sun go down." - David Robertson _____ St. Louis Blues, by W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band Moonlight Blues , by W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band Lyrics to the "St. Louis Blues" PM  As a young adult, Handy moved to St. Louis. Can you talk a little bit about why he moved there and what his experience was like there? DR  Handy moved to St. Louis the way he moved to a lot of other cities earlier and later on in his life – because he was damn near broke and needed a job. Handy and some companions from Alabama traveled to the Chicago World's Fair in hopes of performing for tips, only to arrive there and discover that the fair had been postponed for a year. So there they were, in the cold northern city, many hundreds of miles away from Alabama and home. While his traveling companions decided to go back home to Alabama, Handy, always an optimist, decided to ride the rails throughout the Midwest, absolutely convinced that something better would turn up. It did, but not before he arrived in St. Louis in the dead of a particularly cold winter, even by Midwestern standards, and could find absolutely no work. So Handy – this genteel son and grandson of ministers – wound up being homeless, broke, and sleeping at night on the cobblestone levies of St. Louis. And that is one of the reasons that later inspired him to write that great line from the "St. Louis Blues:" "I hate to see the evening sun go down." I sure would. PM  In addition to the "St. Louis Blues," how do you think his experience in St. Louis shows up in his music? DR  Whether he was in St. Louis, Alabama, Memphis, New York or the hundreds of small towns that he passed through as a minstrel, Handy always had an ear cocked, not only for folk melodies, but also for the vivid colloquialisms of the African American population and the colloquialisms of the white population. In his time living on the streets in St. Louis, he picked up how working class Americans talked at that time, and I would argue that Handy should be remembered not only as a great musical artist, but also as a great literary artist. If you read just the lyrics of his music, there is poetry that is astonishing. PM  You write about how Handy idolized the marching bandleader, John Phillip Sousa. In what ways did Handy model his sound after Sousa? DR  Handy always had a preference for brass instruments, and modeled himself after Sousa as a wonderful frontman and promoter. There was no showman like John Phillip Sousa. But, we must remember also that in the early blues, and certainly in the early jazz, there was a great emphasis on the brass. When you listen to the earliest recordings of the "St. Louis Blues," it is frequently played up-tempo with a very brassy beginning to it unlike other elegiac, soulful versions by which most of us remember the song. John Philip Sousa * "He was then the leader of a local brass band, ambitious to become 'the colored Sousa,' in emulation of the famous white composer of marches, John Philip Sousa." - David Robertson _____ The Stars and Stripes Forever, by John Philip Sousa Photo by L. Rupert 1868 photo of Southern Delta guitarist, George D. Flynn Jr. * "A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeked out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable. His song, too, struck me instantly. Goin' where the Southern cross' the Dog. The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard." - W.C. Handy _____ Fuzzy Wuzzy Rag , by W.C. Handy PM  In late 1903 or early 1904 – the year is not certain – Handy heard a guitarist playing a completely different style than that of brass music while traveling through a railway station in the Mississippi Delta. What made this a musical revelation to him, in comparison to the music he had grown up with in Florence, Alabama? DR  The music that he had heard in the railway station was not based upon western European harmonics, therefore the notes sounded all wrong to him. There would be a minor note played unexpectedly where in European harmonics there should be a major. More notes would be flattened at the whim of the player and Handy was enough of a serious and curious artist to have pondered something like, "From everything I have been taught all my life, from both black and white, this music is all wrong. It shouldn't work." But, he was enough of an artist to realize from hearing that railway station guitar player that the music did work, and it worked wonderfully. Now, he set out to figure out why it worked, even though it sounded so wrong. This is frequently considered the first commercial and artistic use of the so-called blue note. PM  He referred to it as "the weirdest music I ever heard." DR Sure…It sure wasn't John Phillip Sousa. New Orleans, 1900 _____ Salty Dog , by Buddy Bolden Memorial Band New Orleans Blues , by Jelly Roll Morton Dukes of Dixieland – A Salute to Jelly Roll Morton – part 1 , a video about the early music scene in New Orleans with a performance by a Jelly Roll Morton tribute band. PM  During the early 20th century, there seemed to be a musical rivalry between the cities of Memphis and New Orleans. How did the music scenes of these cities differ musically and culturally? DR The breaking down of the different polyphonic breaks that we think of as New Orleans style jazz was not really played that much in Memphis, and it wasn't because the Memphis musicians weren't aware of it. Since Memphis was easier to reach for the musicians from the north or Midwest, the influence of ragtime and other Midwestern music was more likely to show up there. Special Collections, University of Memphis Memphis, 1900 _____ Mistreatin' Blues , by Frank Stokes The Old Town Pump , by W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band memphishistory.com, a website devoted to the history of Memphis with many informative pages on the city's early blues scene and artists Special Collections, University of Memphis The Handy residence in Memphis * "...in casting his lot to settle in the western Tennessee city as a musical manager, performer, and composer, he was, perhaps unknowingly, also opening himself to regional influences of the developing blues uniquely different from what was then being played by Jelly Roll Morton and other African American musicians four hundred miles farther south down the Mississippi River at New Orleans." - David Robertson _____ Beale St. Blues, by W.C. Handy Preservation Band PM  Do you think he made the choice to move to Memphis over New Orleans because he was more comfortable with the music there? DR  It's hard to speculate about the choice, but particularly if you were living in northern Mississippi at that time, which Handy was, Memphis was the big city that you went to rather than New Orleans. In the fiction of William Faulkner, I find it interesting that many of his characters for one reason or another wanted to get out of Mississippi either because they were ambitious or the law was after them. They almost always inevitably headed to Memphis rather than New Orleans. PM  What was Handy's opinion of the New Orleans music scene, if he had one? DR  If he had one, that's insightful because according to Handy's account, he had never passed through or played in New Orleans after his minstrelsy days. As an early blues leader and musician in Mississippi, he probably never booked an engagement any closer to New Orleans than Yazoo City, Mississippi, which still puts you about a hundred miles away. I think his somewhat disdain for the New Orleans style of blues and jazz came in after the attack from Jelly Roll Morton in the late 1930's. PM  He stated "I would not play jazz if I could." DR  Yes, and he was saying it with all the pomposity and paternal authority of a man who insisted that he was the "Father of the Blues." But, I think he said that for a couple of reasons. One, Handy was what musicians at that time called a "score eagle." If you were a musician playing for Mr. Handy and his Memphis Blues Band, you had to be able to read music, and you damn well better follow Mr. Handy's score. That was the reason the great folk blues musician, Charley Patton, wasn't able to play with Handy's band. It was simply that Patton couldn't read music and he agreed, saying that he "couldn't play no-how 'cause he couldn't read that music." Additionally, he may have said this because of his distrust of any great innovation that was away from the written score, and he was very committed to fulfilling Dvorak's prophecy. As a performing musician or as a composer, Handy wasn't really comparable with any music beyond the blues, including what the blues gave birth to – jazz. PM  Was this the reason why he didn't find any value in the music of Charley Patton or Robert Johnson? DR  I think he would have found value in them, but in the way that you or I would have found value if we saw a diamond in the rough. Handy would have felt, "I could polish this up. It will be a beautiful and very valuable object." You or I or particularly the current generation might look down at the diamond in the rough and say, "It's wonderfully beautiful and it's wonderfully valuable, just as it is. Don't polish it up." Charley Patton * "...Handy's band were strictly score reading musicians, and Patton soon realized that he 'couldn't play no-how 'cause he couldn't read that music.' He gave up any ambition to play with Handy's bands." - David Robertson _____ Pony Blues , by Charley Patton Hellhound On My Trail , by Robert Johnson James Reese Europe * Europe and Handy's "encounter in 1917 was a turning point in the history of the blues and would prove significant in deciding which of these two ambitious African American men later would be remembered as its most preeminent practitioner." - David Robertson _____ James Reese Europe & the Hellfighters, a segment from Ken Burns' Jazz on James Reese Europe PM  You wrote that Handy's music was performed by the famous black musician who served as a lieutenant, James Reese Europe. In what ways did they inspire each other? DR  Mutually. If there is one thing that I hope people come away with from my book, even if they aren't convinced by my argument for Handy being a great American composer, it is that they learn the name and acknowledge the remarkable accomplishments of James Reese Europe, who is unjustly forgotten today. They were competitors because the considerably younger Europe was much more open to developing jazz out of the blues than Handy. Europe, who served with the U.S. Army in France during the First World War as a musician and a combat lieutenant, delighted the French audiences with Le Jazz Hot, which was basically Handy's blues played in a jazzier style. PM  In addition to Europe, what was going on in the music scene that set the stage for Handy's success? DR  What was going on musically was the often-forgotten black vaudeville halls, where many of the black performers would play the blues. We also tend to forget today that Memphis was a large enough city to support many cabarets for both white patrons and patrons of color. I say that because we tend to forget that people danced to the blues throughout much of the 1920's and 1930's. Today, we would enjoy the music of Charley Patton but dancing to his music, other than maybe a self-conscious folk step, would not be something that would occur to most of us.point. PM  That's right, in Handy's 1909 performance of "Mister Crump," the crowds went wild for it and all started dancing. If the blues had been around prior to "Mister Crump," why was this considered to be the first published blues song? DR  For a couple of reasons. One of the musicians playing "Mister Crump," whether with Handy's expectation or not, took one of the first blues breaks, a deliberate improvisation from Handy's original score. I imagine that Handy's eyebrows shot up in disapproval when he heard it, but also saw the delighted response from the audience. Handy was a candid enough business man and artist to probably think, "Well ok, this was not the way I was taught, this was not the way I grew up, but, oh my, do the people seem to like it!" From this point on, there would usually be the allowance of the blues break in Handy's performances. Unfortunately, Handy himself rarely, if ever, plays the blues break on the few recordings of him that exist. PM  Tell me the story of the "Memphis Blues or (Mister Crump)" and how Handy got swindled out of that song. DR  When you're writing a book, whether it is a biography or a novel, you have to be careful of minor characters trying to take over your story, and that was the case with Boss Crump. When I was writing that chapter, I felt that I was engaged in a very hard campaign by Boss Crump taking over that chapter. He was such a marvelously colorful and memorable southern politician with such a marvelous mixture of both good and perhaps evil. Later, Boss Crump went on to control the political fortunes of Tennessee up until the 1950's. If you were President Harry Truman and wanted the Democratic Party to do well in Tennessee, you had better talk to Mr. Crump and do what Boss Crump told you. But at the time, Boss Crump was a young man and was just starting his political career, and it was when he was known as Mr. Crump rather than Boss Crump. In order to popularize his name among the African American political wards and earn their votes, he had one of his lieutenants commission the political campaign song of "Mister Crump," which later became "The Memphis Blues." Handy lost the copyright to "The Memphis Blues" because Handy, as was the case most of his life, badly needed the money. He made a great deal of money, but practically anyone on this planet could handle money better than Handy. He wound up broke having to pay the expenses of his traveling blues bands. He had attempted to sell the score of "Mister Crump" or "The Memphis Blues," but had been conned by two song sharks who said something like, "Don't worry Mr. Handy, you put the score up at your expense and we'll sell them and we'll all make a lot of money." The two con men did sell the scores but kept the money and probably said, "I'm sorry Mr. Handy, we tried the best that we could, but we just couldn't sell this song, I'm afraid it's a dog. But being the nice soul that I am, I'll offer you fifty bucks if you'll sign where all copyrights will be given to me," which Handy did because he needed the money. Only afterwards did he discover that not only were people whistling, playing and singing "Mister Crump" in Memphis, they were also whistling, playing and singing it in New York, Chicago and other American markets. Special Collections, University of Memphis W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band, 1918 * "The crowd in the street literally went wild over it. They shouted until they were hoarse, demanding to hear it again and again. They whistled and danced with the rhythmic sway of the music, as the words floated out upon the air." - Social historian and witness George Lee on the first performance of "Mister Crump" _____ The Memphis Blues or (Mister Crump) , from the album Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy W.C. Handy visits Memphis' Beale Street during 1936 * W.C. Handy – Father of the Blues , a short interview with Sandra Ford, curator of the W.C. Handy Home & Museum discussing why Handy is known as the "Father of the Blues" PM  How important in the life of W.C. Handy was his failure to copyright "The Memphis Blues?" DR  Extremely important – so important that he was able to establish the Handy Brothers Music Company that continues to this day and make most of his money not as a blues composer, but as a blues distributor and blues buyer of copyrights. Handy learned the hard way that the key to making good money as a professional musician was not in performing songs, but in owning copyrights of the songs. This makes Handy a little different and a little off-putting for people who were enthusiastic about the blues. A writer in Los Angeles reviewing my book put it very well: "the average blues musician of that time looked like a bank robber. W.C. Handy looked like the president of the bank." That defines it. A glance at the "St. Louis Blues" from ten decades * Original Dixieland Jazz Band, 1917 Esther Bigeou, 1921 Cab Calloway, 1930 Lena Horne, 1941 Nat King Cole, 1958 Chuck Berry, 1965 Ray Bryant, 1975 Max Collie's Rhythm Aces, 1986 Herbie Hancock, 1998 Greg Osby, 2003 PM  Why do think his composition, the "St. Louis Blues" was not initially popular but became popular six years later? DR  For one thing, it was difficult to play even for skilled musicians who were familiar with the blues tempo or the ragtime tempo because it combines so much into one composition. The music within the "St. Louis Blues" is not only a scoring of blues melodies but also some church liturgical music, a slow march tune, and in the middle when that "St. Louie woman with the store bought hair" makes an appearance, the tango. It's not the sort of song where you could buy the score, take home, sit down at your piano in the parlor and play, and that was how most music was played throughout the 1910's. Some recordings had not yet become reliable or affordable so the music was supported usually by individuals who bought scores and played them for the entertainment of themselves and their families. PM  Did Handy know the potential of the "St. Louis Blues" for the years it wasn't popular? DR  Yes and no. I am absolutely convinced he did but on the other hand, Handy always needed money. Astonishingly, Handy apparently signed an exclusive with a vaudeville performer to perform the "St. Louis Blues" on stage for literally no more than fifty bucks. But on the other hand, Handy never sold the copyright until the very depths of his personal poverty in the 1920's and made very certain to get that copyright back. Handy knew that he had written a piece of art, but was perennially broke and would pawn that piece of art when he needed the money just like in Memphis he would often pawn his cornet for money to buy groceries for his family. * "Like all romantic masterpieces, the 'St. Louis Blues' is the lyrical objectification of deeply remembered subjective experiences – 'powerful feelings from the emotions recalled in tranquility,' as an earlier adapter of folk ballads had phrased it..." - David Robertson _____ St. Louis Blues , a Louis Armstrong All Stars performance from 1959 "St. Louis Blues" , a trailer to the 1958 feature film on Handy and the music he wrote, starring Nat King Cole, Eartha Kitt, Cab Calloway and Ella Fitzgerald among others Marion Harris * "Harris was the first white performer to record a romantic, atmospheric version of the "St. Louis Blues," and her part in making the song an enormous crossover success in the coming decades for Handy cannot be underestimated." - David Robertson _____ St. Louis Blues, by Marion Harris PM  Eventually, the artist who popularizes the song is Marion Harris. Why do you think Handy hired her to record the "St. Louis Blues?" DR  Marion Harris is one of those minor characters that we talked about struggling to take over a book and is almost totally forgotten today. I fell in love with her. She had a remarkably erotic voice, very modern sounding and she was one of the first flappers. I wrote so much and so enthusiastically about Marion Harris that my editor basically had to say "Robertson tone it down, tone it down, if she were alive she would be old enough to be your great grandmother." PM  Well, she was the "Jazz Vampire." DR  Oh sure, what more would a fella want, she could also be the "Jazz Baby," maybe both at the same time. What more does a fella want. The point emphasized is that Handy found the perfect crossover performer for that crossover composition he had long been searching for. Although she is forgotten today, Marion Harris was extremely popular not only with white audiences, but had a very large following among African American listeners as well. PM  In Memphis, Handy meets a banker named Harry Pace, and they form the Pace and Handy Music Company. How did Handy and Pace get in touch with each other and why did Handy choose Pace to become his partner? DR  Memphis was the largest city in the area and the big city if you were living in a small town in northern Mississippi, but nevertheless, in realistic terms, was still a small city. Pace was a seriously committed amateur musician, singing in choirs in black churches in Memphis. Given the size of the city and it's African American population, two comparatively young men, both interested in all kinds of music would almost inevitably cross paths as they did. Pace, at that time, was employed not in the music business, but as a very respected banker at an African American owned bank in Memphis. Harry Pace * "By 1913, when Handy had determined to recoup his revenue lost subsequent to his sale of 'The Memphis Blues,' the ambitious orchestra leader and the socially rising cashier again agreed to act in concert as business partners... They would control the copyrighting and marketing of the new songs they would either buy from others or compose for themselves." - David Robertson _____ Snakey Blues , by W.C. Handy Special Collections Library, Duke University The office of the Pace and Handy Music Company * Yellow Dog Blues, one of the first hits from the Pace and Handy Music Company PM  What kind of challenges Pace and Handy face as African American entrepreneurs in New York City? DR  The greatest challenge may have been for Harry Pace trying to cover bad checks that his partner, Handy, kept writing and bouncing. Which is to say that Handy was a wonderful artist, but couldn't handle money worth a flip. Pace was a trained banker and a successful businessman in insurance after he left the banking business. But, as to the difficulties sitting aside Pace probably thought, "my partner is a genius but he might just end up bankrupt if I don't keep an eye on him." Pace handled the money and had to make that very clear. Pace and Handy were facing, if not discrimination, the fact of being one of the very few black owned and kept alive businesses. It's very significant to say Handy did not locate their offices in Harlem, but at Tin Pan Alley, which at that time consisted of businesses primarily run by recent immigrants from Germany and elsewhere. Their mindset would have been something like, "We may be a minority business but we're not going to settle for a minority part in the business. We plan to compete with Irving Berlin and all the other big companies on Tin Pan Alley." PM  You write about Handy's trouble with handling his own money and it was one the reasons why Pace left to form the first all black record label, Black Swan Records. What kind of challenges and opportunities did that provide Handy's company after he left? DR  For those who read my book, I hope they carry away a memory of Black Swan Records because at least two generations before Motown Records, Black Swan existed as a black capitalized business specializing exclusively in African American performers. Ironically, Black Swan failed as a business, but the hapless handler of music – Handy – and his business continued into the next century. While the idea that Black Swan would record African American musicians performing for an African American audience was promising, Handy was interested in creating a crossover success. PM  During his later years, Handy starts producing spiritual albums and kind of distances himself from the blues. DR  He does this, in part, because he realized that as an artist, his time had passed and probably thought "It was a wonderful time while it lasted and that I and the people around me may have done something of lasting pleasure and value." In the 1910's and the early 1920's, Handy moved to New York and fused the "St. Louis Blues" and the "Yellow Dog Blues" and all of those wonderful hits. But, as it became the late 1930's and early 1940's, Handy quite cannily realized that there was a newer generation coming along, playing a music that had grown out of the blues, called jazz, which Handy didn't quite understand and couldn't quite play. They were also playing big band music and I think Handy realized something like, "I still have much to contribute, but my time in the sun has passed with the early blues." Handy was not only a proud African American composer but a proud African American who, in the fulfillment of Dvorak's prophecy, must have thought "I would like very much, both as a business man and an artist to bring to the whole American people, not only the great accomplishment of the folk blues, but the great accomplishment of the black spirituals." PM  Throughout Handy's tough trials and tribulations, did he ever consider giving up a career in music for a more conventional job? DR  Never, and that says a great deal about his commitment as a musician. In terms of his sufferings, B.B. King's remark sums it up: "To play the blues as an African American is to be black twice." In regards to Handy's sufferings, he went blind not once, but twice. Once in the 1920's, from which he fortunately recovered and again in the 1940's from which he unfortunately did not. This man who loved composing and reading music was blind and would not be able to read a score again. Cover to Black Swan Records' price listings for their 1922 releases * "...Black Swan Records had been the most popular black-owned distributor of African American music until the rise in the late 1950s of Motown Records," - David Robertson _____ Down Home Blues , one of Black Swan Records' biggest hits by Ethel Waters Jelly Roll Morton * "I created jazz in 1902, not W.C. Handy." -Jelly Roll Morton _____ Jelly Roll Morton: A Slideshow Tribute , a slideshow to Jelly Roll Morton's, "Mr. Jelly Lord" PM  Jelly Roll Morton had some pretty harsh things to say about Handy, essentially declaring himself the founder of the blues and jazz, not Handy. Does Morton have a good case? DR  No. Jelly Roll Morton had some pretty harsh things to say about practically any other musician of color who was not Jelly Roll Morton. I think that's a continuation of the debate about where the blues originated: New Orleans or Memphis? The honest answer is "both." So, while Morton may have been trying to make a case for New Orleans in his comments, he was making the case too strongly for himself being the founder of the blues and jazz than anything else. PM  What did Handy think of Morton's music? DR  Although Handy was not the "Father of the Blues," he was always a genial individual and a very serious and honest artist. He had admiration for Jelly Roll Morton's blues and, in turn, he by no means disparaged Morton's artistic accomplishments. As a private individual, though, Handy talked to his lawyers about suing the hell out of Jelly Roll when Morton was making these charges against him. Although he disagreed with Morton in print about the exclusive New Orleans view of the blues, he did so in a much more tempered and genial way than Mr. Morton. Jelly Roll Morton _____ Original Jelly Roll Blues Wolverine Blues King Porter Stomp W.C. Handy in his later years writing a score * "...the very first musician to recognize the significance of the blues as music." - James Weldon Johnson on W.C. Handy _____ St. Louis Blues, by Billie Holiday St. Louis Blues , by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys PM  What was Handy's biggest contribution to the blues musically? DR  A couple of things…First of all, the blue note and Handy by no means is the father of the blue note even though in his day it was known as "W.C. Handy's famous blue note." Obviously, that anonymous folk guitarist Handy heard at the railway station in Mississippi had been playing blue notes prior to Handy's use of it. But, one of Handy's major accomplishments was the introduction and crossover use of the blue note into national popular music. Because of Handy, everyday people in places like Portland, Oregon can hear the blue note. Another contribution, which he sometimes goes without credit, is his introduction of other national music into our national music. The "St. Louis Blues" not only has wonderful passages of black folk and liturgical music; it also has the tango in it. Handy was among the first to be interested in and appreciate the artistic possibilities of American Hispanic music. The Latin-inflicted rhythms that the kids are playing today probably would have puzzled but delighted Handy if he were alive today. That's another reason why Handy may have been a little disparaged. He was not exclusively the advocate of the rural African American blues – he was the advocate for good music wherever he heard it whether it was the ragtime that developed after John Phillip Sousa or the tango played in Cuba and parts of Florida. PM  What was Handy's greatest contribution to American culture and music? DR  I will always argue for the importance of the "St. Louis Blues." Handy fulfilled, as much as it can be, the Dvorak Prophecy that there was a great American music to be written and the "St. Louis Blues" is a historic piece of American music. It was black folk music with ragtime and the Hispanic tango beat and is recognized worldwide as a distinctively American tune. The "St. Louis Blues" has been one of the most frequently recorded songs in the 20th and 21st century and if you have written a song that has been covered successfully by both Billie Holiday and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, you have written a truly American piece of music. PM  You write that the current generation "associates the blues exclusively with rural Delta musicians such as Robert Johnson, or with New Orleans-based performers such as Jelly Roll Morton…" Why do these musicians overshadow W.C. Handy in the current generation's viewpoint of the blues? DR  That is a "real interesting pair of short sleeves," as Handy would say. A "war" is currently going on within the world of blues scholarship, where a handful of musicians and scholar Alan Lomax chose to define the blues as the music of an exploited class in the Mississippi Delta that was created specifically for ideological or political reasons. They certainly were exploited and it was their music, but this denies the urban origin of the blues, which was contemporaneous with the folk musicians in the Mississippi Delta. Also central to this heated argument is the discussion about whether the origin of the blues has been defined too narrowly, and if it ignores urban figures and musicians such as W.C. Handy. PM  Which was more important: the music he created, or the popularization of the music he created? DR  Well, which is more important: the eloquence of the preacher on Sunday, or the fact that he keeps me from sinning until next Sunday? To take the long view, his greatest achievement was his crossover success because it would have been much harder for other African American performers such as Bessie Smith to achieve their success and acclaim had there not been W.C. Handy. However, judged as an artist, his great accomplishment was in his use of words and melodies. Robert Johnson * "Composing his sophisticated blues outside of the New Orleans tradition into a music made from two centuries of American entertainment he had heard in brass bands, minstrelsy ragtime, riverboat serenades, tango rhythms, vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley tunes, and Delta folk melodies, Handy was disregarded by later blues purists as a lesser figure in favor of that Louisiana city's early musical performers." - David Robertson _____ Cross Road Blues , by Robert Johnson W.C. Handy "Father of the Blues", by Jan Roblin _____ Bunch O Blues, by W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band PM  Since Handy was not technically the first to play the blues, what does that do to his image as the "Father of the Blues"? DR  Handy's claim as being the "Father of the Blues" for both marketing and personal pride has opened him up to attack by people other than Jelly Roll Morton and I am the first biographer to say he wasn't what he claimed to be. There are many fathers and mothers of the blues. The female performers and originators of the blues have also been unjustly forgotten. I kept in mind a metaphor that when the blues was born, it was a beautiful little baby that looked like good coffee with a little cream in it. This baby is African American with a little white and Hispanic in him and there are many mothers and fathers around his bed. Handy is there, Bessie Smith is there, and Charley Patton is probably out in the yard too, and if you kept walking a little farther from the house, damned if you didn't see John Phillip Sousa in his uniform. They were all more or less the fathers, mothers, or the godparents of the blues. Handy made the blues but he made them in the sense that he made them a success and a self-conscious art. But, he claimed a lot more for himself and that unfortunately opened him to charges that totally reprimand his claims. Handy was about seven-tenths of what he claimed to be. _______________________________________________________ W.C. Handy's statue on Beale Street recognizing him as the "Father of the Blues" * "Indeed, Handy would be interested throughout his life in the symphonic possibilities of the blues, with their uniquely played minor notes and folk melodies. But he also saw himself as an American composer in the sense of no longer being just another unknown provincial person of color who played European-inspired marches and waltzes. 'I let no grass grow under my feet,' Handy later wrote of first hearing the Mississippi blues; shortly thereafter he moved his family to Memphis and organized his blues orchestras and music publishing business. The blues performed as commercial entertainment and sold as sheet music to a national audience promised to make William Christopher Handy, as an American composer, a rich man." - David Robertson _____ Farewell Blues, by W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band "W.C. Handy, Father of the Blues", a short documentary Handy and how he created the blues *  In no particular order of preference, David Robertson's five favorite versions of the "St. Louis Blues: Billie Holiday, from her album, "No Regrets" Any version by Bessie Smith Django Reinhart and Stephane Grappeli, from their album, "Paris 1937" Glenn Miller, in the fast-tempo version later adopted as a marching tune by the U. S. Military Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, in a white-country, two-step swing version. * Lyrics to the "St. Louis Blues": I hate to see that evening sun go down, I hate to see that evening sun go down, 'Cause my lovin' baby done left this town. If I feel tomorrow, like I feel today, If I feel tomorrow, like I feel today, I'm gonna pack my trunk and make my getaway. Oh, that St. Louis woman, with her diamond rings, She pulls my man around by her apron strings. And if it wasn't for powder and her store-bought hair, Oh, that man of mine wouldn't go nowhere. I got those St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be, Oh, my man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea, Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me. I love my man like a schoolboy loves his pie, Like a Kentucky colonel loves his rocker and rye I'll love my man until the day I die, Lord, Lord. I got the St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be, Lord, Lord! That man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea, Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me. I got those St. Louis blues, I got the blues, I got the blues, I got the blues, My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea, Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me, Lord, Lord! ______________________________________________ W.C. Handy: The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues by David Robertson * About David Robertson David Robertson is the author of three previous biographies, of slave rebel Denmark Vesey, the former U.S. secretary of state James F. Byrnes, and the bishop James A. Pike, and of a historical novel about John Wilkes Booth. His poetry has appeared in the Sewanee Review and other journals, and he has provided political and literary commentary on ABC News and The Washington Post. He was educated in Alabama and lives in Ohio.  __________________________ PM  Who was your childhood hero? DR  I would have to say my most admired figure in my early youth – I was born and grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s at Anniston, Alabama, among the most bitterly fought sites of the civil rights era in my state – was my city's local journalist, Cody Hall. Cody, the editor at the Anniston Star newspaper, very bravely, and at considerable financial and social risks, took an editorial stand in his paper urging a non-violent acceptance of racial integration by the city's white residents, and insisting upon the rule of law in prosecuting those who committed violence upon the freedom riders and civil rights workers who traveled to Anniston in those early years. His stand was taken also at a considerable physical risk; the FBI later gathered evidence that the local Ku Klux Klan was assembling explosives in order to bomb Cody's office and the Star's printing plant. What is more, Cody wrote eloquently, learnedly, and passionately. He was a combat veteran of World War Two, and was one of the last generation of the truly great journalists in the "Good Night, And Good Luck" tradition. I was honored to have known him. * Critical Acclaim for W.C. Handy: The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues "[Robertson] casts overdue light on Handy’s essential role in establishing the blues as a popular art . . . A biography of admirable restraint." -- David Hajdu, The New York Times Book Review "A remarkable musical journey . . . An overdue and highly readable account of the man known as the Father of the Blues." -- Mark Rozzo, The Los Angeles Times "A fascinating look at not only Handy’s life but the history and business of American music." -- Publishers Weekly "At the turn of the twentieth century, W. C. Handy (1873–1958) propelled the blues from regional obscurity, changing it into a vital tradition that fostered much of American popular music that followed. A native Alabaman, Handy moved to Memphis in 1905 after living in St. Louis and becoming a professional musician whose experience included playing in minstrel shows for racially mixed audiences. He became a prolific composer of songs, including “St. Louis Blues” and “Beale Street Blues,” and established Memphis as the blues’ capital and Beale Street as its main street. Handy’s accomplishments as singer, composer, band leader, and musician came together in his endeavors as he became more famous and influential. Rich and atmospheric, Robertson’s portrayal of Handy is also comprehensive and well referenced. It ought to be required reading for devotees of American music, though it might constitute heavy sledding for casual fans. Readers who persist will be rewarded with a rich basic history of the man and his music and the roots of much of the music we hear today." -- Booklist * W.C. Handy products at Amazon.com David Robertson products at Amazon.com _______________________________ This interview took place on July 25th, 2009 _______________________________ Other Jerry Jazz Musician interviews # Text from publisher. * This interview was conducted and published by Peter Maita on September 4th, 2009. Portland, Oregon.

---

Copyright 1998 - 2004 Jerry Jazz Musician, LLC Development by JAM & Associates