Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
DECEMBER 14, 1918
159
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THE BLUES
By W. C. HANDY, Director of the Pace & Handy Orchestra
As I am more often than not given credit
for being the "creator of blues," many people
in the trade, including historians, publishers
and teachers, etc., have requested me at dif-
ferent times to state how I was led to write
such compositions.
As a boy I worked very hard, but like all
my people, I felt the need of melodies and
took part in many mu-
sical entertainments,
l a t e r becoming a
member of a not too
successful Glee Club.
There was, of course,
no financial renumera-
tion in these affairs,
and there were times
w h e n I was h a r d
pressed for funds. At
one of these periods,
W. C. Handy
f or they came often, a
friend of mine encouraged me to follow out
my desires along musical lines. I had in-
tended to purchase a cornet, but he said, "Son,
you go get yourself a banjo. That's the col-
ored man's instrument." I, however, bought a
cornet with the money I had been saving for
quite a long while. I progressed very nicely
and at the age of twenty years I became the
leading band-master in a minstrel show.
I had quite a taste at this time for classical
music and I was much given to reading, in-
cluding the history and lives of master mu-
sicians. This included, of course, folk songs,
and I found these master composers had built
their greatest work on the lives of the people
of which they were a part. Primitive melodies
of the Southern negro appealed to me as hav-
ing qualities worth while writing into a distinct
line of music. I quit the show business, went
South, and stayed three years in Mississippi
studying the plantation melodies. I then or-
ganized an orchestra in Memphis, Tenn., and
featured these melodies at dances and other
public affairs. It was not long before they
became popular, and I had ten such or-
ganizations.
These melodies were such successes that I
then decided to publish at least a few of them.
Being the originator of the blue idea, I wish
to give to those interested this bit of informa-
tion: The name Blues is not derived from
the blue notes contained therein, as is errone-
ously stated by imitators of this style.
Frederick Douglass, the ex-slave and states-
man, in his autobiography, has this to say: "It
is not inconsistent with the constitution of hu-
man mind that avails itself of one and the
same method of expressing opposite emotions."
The songs of the slaves represented their
sorrows rather than their joys. Like tears, they
were a relief to an aching heart. The sorrow
songs of the slaves we call jubilee melodies.
The happy-go-lucky songs of the Southern Ne-
gro we call "blues."
The tendency to avoid the seventh tone of
the scale in these melodies and to overdraw
the minor third gives to this form of compo-
sition a weird effect when heard, and although
the imagination is drawn on to connect these
blues with their African origin, it is a fact
that most primitive peoples carefully avoided
the seventh tone of the scale.
An example of this avoidance can be found
in the choruses of "The Memphis Blues" and
"The St. Louis Blues." To get a proper con-
ception of a Blues sing or play carefully and
not boisterously the chorus of "Beale Street
Blues" and you will understand what 1 am try-
ing to say.
NEW TITLE PAGE FOR "SOME DAY"
Number Put in Stasny Standard Catalog and
Will Be Featured in Strong Ad. Campaign
The A. J. Stasny Music Co. have just pro-
vided a most attractive new title page for the
srjng "Some Day," by Earl Burtnett and Walter
Artistic Title Page of Stasny Hit
King, and which during the few months it has
been on the market has enjoyed an excellent
sale. The number has been placed in the stand'
ard catalog of the company and an aggressive
advertising campaign will be inaugurated in the
interests of the song which is expected to iiv
crease its popularity still further.
Fay Foster's great success, "The Americans
Come," has already been recorded by one talk-
ing machine company and will shortly appear on
three other record lists.
Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Popular Priced Numbers
Good-Bye France (You'll Never Be For-
gotten By the U. S. A.)
Oh! What A Time for the Girlies When
the Boys Come Marching Home
Come On Papa
Oh, How I Wish I Could Sleep Until My
Daddy Comes Home
Don't You Remember the Day?
1 Cannot Bear to Say Good-bye
American Beauty
How Can I Forget
Mammy's Little Pansy
Where Have You Been Hiding All
These Years?
Tell That To The Marines
Rock A Bye Your Baby With A Dixie
Melody
The Tale the Church Bells Tolled
Oh, How I Hate to Get Up In the Morning
The Worst Is Yet to Come
You Keep Sending 'Em Over and We'll
Keep Knocking 'Em Down
Humanity
Hooverize
Hearts of the World
Bring Me a Rose
Just a Baby's Prayer at Twilight
Hello, Central, Give Me No Man's
Land
I've Got My Eyes On You
Bluebird, Bring Back My Happi-
ness
When Alexander Takes His Rag-
time Band to France
Victory
WATERSON, BERLIN & SNYDER GO.
STRAND THEATRE BUILDING,
Broadway at 47th Street,
NEW YORK, N. Y.