W.C.HANDY' AND HIS " St. LOUIS BLUES"

W.C.Handy and his" St. Louis Blues"  Alec Wilder , writing in American Popular Song: The Great Innovators; 1900-1950" concluded that " No American song is better known or has had more performances than St. Louis Blues.  It most certainly is one of the most notable of popular music landmarks. Handy's many blues are a marvellous contribution to the body of American popular song."   It is also is instructive to quote Isaac Goldberg writing about Handy's important blues development role in his book  Tin Pan Alley.

         " Willian Christopher Handy " the father of the blues" is not the inventor of the genre: he
             is its Moses, not its Jehovah. It was he who, first of the musicians, codified the new spirit
             in African (Negro) music and sent it forth upon its conquest of the North.
             The " rag" has sung and danced the joyous aspects of Negro life.
             The "blues," new only in their emergence, sang the sorrows of secular existence

Goldberg also said " Handy was the first to set jazz down upon paper-to fix the quality of the various 'breaks" as these wildly filled in pauses were named. With a succession of " blues' he fixed the genre."
The " blues " undoubtedly is the most purely indigenous American popular music invention. Other innovations in popular song were also created through  harmonic and melodic devices which essentially were drawn from European and formal compositional  roots. Even Duke Ellington's jazz pieces drew heavily upon the modern " French" harmony of Ravel and Debussy.

" St. Louis Blues" is quite unique since it is written in four distinct segments. It starts with the
usual 12 bar sections each with different lyrics. The third section is in the form of a tango reflecting early Spanish New Orleans. with the lyric stating" St. Louis Woman, wid her diamin' rings" . This "Spanish" segment is most unusual  and instantly memorable.The final section is another 12 bar blues chorus. Not all recorded versions follow the sheet music since the song does inspire performers to take liberties with both the music and lyrics.

Bessie Smith, known as the" Empress of The Blues" is featured in a dramatized filmed segment in which she portray a sad and broken woman, living example  of what Isacc Golberg had said what the blues were all about " The sorrows of secular existence" especially for Afro-Americans before and during W.C Handy's era.
Bessie is accompanied by an small orchestra and a chorus which lends an essence of the spiritual tradition in a song that is anything but spiritual in tone or intent. Bessie Smith's own life was filled with the sadness and despair echoed in the song and her performance does reflect what the blues is all about. 

A more reflective version is provided by Maxine Sullivan who led a much different life than Bessie Smith which  is evident in her more relaxed yet poignant style.. Two black women with different histories find commonality in an immortal W.C.Handy composition.
BESSIE SMITH LINK:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Who6fTHJ34

MAXINE SULLIVAN LINK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_aai_ItJ7E