[MUSIC] >> At the dawn of the 20th century, somewhere around 1903, William Christopher Handy faced a significant life decision. He was 28 years old, a black American born in Florence, Alabama, and just one generation removed from slavery. The decision Handy faced was a difficult one. An experienced musician and band leader who had traveled throughout the South with the group called Mahara's Colored Minstrels. Handy had been offered a job leading a municipal orchestra in Michigan. This was an attractive opportunity for a southern black musician. Moving to the north almost certainly meant a rise in status and stature. It almost certainly meant a better life. For him and his wife Elizabeth. But as he was about to accept this opportunity, another offer came along, this one to lead the all black Knights of Pythius band in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Handy later said, he didn't know or understand quite why he decided to accept the Mississippi job. But he did quote, for no good reason I could express, end quote. Proved to be an important choice indeed, WC Andy and his family lived for six years in Clarksville. But that's not the really important part of the story. The important part is this. Later in 1903, Handy was waiting for a train in the small hamlet of Tutweiler, Mississippi. WC Handy was sitting on a bench, waiting for a train. Nearby was a black man who had a guitar laying flat in his lap. He was playing that guitar using a pocket knife as a slide. The song he played was called Where the Southern Crossed the Dog. And that's just about all the lyric there was to that song. But it was the first time WC Handy had encountered the Blues. And it inspired him to go on to compose some of the first really famous Blues songs in the world. He later wrote of the experience in these words. A lean, loose-jointed negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags. His feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had in 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 use steel bars. The effect was unforgettable. His songs stuck with me too. The lyric to the song, or so Handy said, was very, very simple. All it said was Goin' Where The Southern Cross The Dog. It turns out, the song was about a major railroad crossing in the area. The place where the Illinois Central Railroad, known as the Southern crossed the Yazoo-Delta Railroad, known as the Yellow Dog, near Moorhead, Mississippi. Handy later wrote, quote, the singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard, end quote. This was the day that WC Handy encountered blues music. And it changed his life. I could argue that it changed all of ours as well. Fast forward to somewhere around 1905 and Handy's band is playing a dance in Cleveland, Mississippi, which is about 40 miles south of Clarksdale on Highway 61. Someone in the audience sends a note to Handy asking to hear some of our native music. Handy strikes up an old southern melody, but is asked if a local group can play a bit. He agrees. Three young colored men take the stage with a battered guitar, a beat up mandolin and a standup bass. Handy wrote of it this way. 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 its disturbing monotony. But on and on it went, the kind of stuff associated with cane rows and levy camps. Thump, thump, thump went their feet on the floor. It was not really annoying or unpleasant, perhaps haunting is the better word, so Handy wrote. But when they finished playing, Handy wrote, quote, a reign of silver dollars began to fall around the outlandish stomping feet. There, before the boys, lay more money than my musicians were making for the entire engagement. End of quote. In this moment, Handy wrote, he saw the beauty of primitive music. I love that line. In an instant, he saw that people would pay for these songs. That audiences would flock to hear them. Fast-forward again to 1909, and Handy has moved his band to Memphis. He writes a campaign song for the mayoral candidate, Edward Crump. That song was the genesis of the Memphis Blues. In 1912, the first published song, to include the so-called blue notes. For you musicians, the blue notes are the flat thirds and sevenths. Let's listen to that song now. [MUSIC] Many scholars credit the Memphis Blues as the first blue song. And historian said, they inspired the invention the dance known as the Foxtrot. Handy followed it up two years later with Saint Louis Blues which was written to take advantage of the then current dance rage, the tango. Here is Bessie Smith, singing it with the Louis Armstrong orchestra from 1925. [MUSIC] Handy also wrote Beale Street Blues around this time, about his time in Memphis, and dozens more blues oriented songs. He went on to become known as the Father of the Blues. Perhaps that was because he chose to title his 1941 memoire Father of the Blues. That certainly didn't hurt. But to be fair and honest, no serious in-depth biography of Handy has yet been attempted. We have only his account, which could be thought self serving. Regardless, he was one of the first blacks to achieve economic success through music publishing. He later moved to New York City, and opened his own music publishing business. He died in 1958, and more than 25,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church. It was written that some 150,000 people gathered in the streets, near the church to pay their respects to WC Handy. All of this because of an odd decision made in 1903 and a fateful meeting at a train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi. The true origin of the Blues is lost to time. We never will know exactly where and when it began. Nor will we ever know the identity of that lean, loose-jointed negro playing slide guitar. [MUSIC]
