Chapter 5: The Blues
While the blues began as a grassroots form of musical expression, its popularity in the early 20th century also inspired professional songwriters and publishers to create blues-influenced compositions for mass consumption. Much like the wave of ragtime-themed songs produced by Tin Pan Alley, these blues-inspired pieces often borrowed the aesthetic of the blues without strictly following its musical conventions. The most prolific composer in this trend was W.C. Handy.
W.C. Handy (1873–1958) is often referred to as the "Father of the Blues," though it is more accurate to describe him as the father of the "arranged blues"—popular songs that were influenced by blues traditions rather than rooted in the lived performance practices of rural or urban blues musicians. Handy began his musical career as a cornettist and bandleader, traveling throughout the Mississippi Delta where he encountered a wide variety of African American folk and blues styles. Inspired by this exposure, he began composing blues-based songs for performance and publication.
His first major success came with "Memphis Blues," a campaign song he wrote in 1912 for E. H. Crump’s mayoral run in Memphis. Though it did not strictly follow the 12-bar blues form, the song ignited a national craze for blues-inspired popular music. Two years later, Handy published "St. Louis Blues," which became one of the most famous American songs of the early 20th century. While also not in 12-bar form, "St. Louis Blues" integrated elements of blues tonality and theme with a more formal structure suitable for popular and classical musicians alike.
Handy’s compositions helped bring the sound and themes of the blues into the concert hall, parlor, and Broadway stage. His success also encouraged other Tin Pan Alley composers to write blues-themed songs, and by the mid-1910s, hundreds of so-called "blues" numbers appeared in sheet music and on recordings. Though many of these pieces lacked core characteristics of the genre, such as blue notes, call and response, and improvisation, they reflect the growing national fascination with blues culture. Promotional strategies played a key role in this trend, with publishers and performers capitalizing on the rising popularity of the term "blues," much as they had previously done with ragtime, by branding songs as "blues" even when they shared little in common with the form’s rural or urban roots.
Handy’s influence extended well beyond composition and publication. In 1916, he released “Beale Street Blues,” a tribute to the thriving African American cultural district in Memphis. The song played a role in solidifying the area’s identity as a hub for the blues and even helped inspire the renaming of Beale Avenue to Beale Street. In the early 1900s, the street was lined with Black-owned clubs, restaurants, and businesses, serving as a vibrant center of community life. From the 1920s through the 1940s, Beale Street became a legendary proving ground for blues and jazz artists, hosting performances by Louis Armstrong, Memphis Minnie, Albert King, Muddy Waters, Rosco Gordon, and B.B. King—who earned the nickname “Beale Street Blues Boy” early in his career. Recognizing its historic significance, the U.S. Congress officially designated Beale Street as the “Home of the Blues” on December 15, 1977.
Handy’s role in bringing blues elements to new audiences helped transform the genre into a national symbol, but it also sparked debates about authenticity, artistic ownership, and the influence of market trends on musical identity. His contributions remain vital not just for what they accomplished musically but for how they reveal the evolving boundaries of what "the blues" could mean in different contexts. W.C. Handy’s had an outsized influence on the commercialization and national spread of the blues. His efforts helped turn the blues from a regional expression into a national symbol, bridging the gap between grassroots performance and professionalized music publishing.