St. Louis Blues

"St. Louis Blues" was composed by W. C. Handy in 1914 and published that September through the Pace and Handy Music Company, only the third music publishing company owned by African Americans. Known as the "Father of the Blues," Handy drew on his own experience of being penniless on the streets of St. Louis in 1892 and on observations of human suffering he witnessed there. The composition synthesizes Southern folk blues traditions with elements of ragtime and, most distinctively, incorporates a tango or habanera rhythm in its bridge section, which Handy characterized as a "tom tom beat." Its innovative use of blue notes, particularly flattened thirds and sevenths set against a major key framework, creates the characteristic tension between major and minor tonality that defines the blues idiom. Handy called the technique his "World Famous Blue Note." Unlike his earlier "Memphis Blues," for which he received only fifty dollars, Handy maintained control of "St. Louis Blues" through self-publishing, and a quarter century later it still generated twenty-five thousand dollars in annual royalties. The song gained its audience gradually through the African-American vaudeville circuit before reaching broader popularity through Al Bernard's 1919 recording. Louis Armstrong recorded the song many times, including a celebrated version backing Bessie Smith. The composition has been recorded thousands of times across virtually every musical genre, making a full accounting of its versions impossible and securing its place as one of the most important compositions in American popular music history.