I was spending a few days in Memphis with my pal Kelley for some Black Friday shopping, but I figured you’d need me to pay a little museum visit while I was in town. You'll find it at 352 Beale Street, on Beale and Fourth Street.
A couple of years back I’d been on a bus tour of Memphis and remembered the guide helpfully mentioning that we’d just passed the house of WC Handy. All we saw was a little blue house, but it was pretty much too late to see anything. Terrific. What do you mean, you’ve never heard of WC Handy? He’s the Father of the Blues. Listen up, you might learn something (doubtful, but you might).
The museum is based in the house where William Christopher Handy lived, in Memphis, from 1909 to 1918. He’d moved there, from Alabama, into this shotgun house (a rectangular building, no more than twelve feet wide, with doors at either end). However, when Handy lived there, the house was in a different location but moved to Beale Street more recently.
As a boy in Alabama, he saved some money to buy a guitar but his dad was not happy with the purchase, insisting he take it back and buy a dictionary. Handy did as he was told, but the next time he’d saved enough money to buy a cornet, he didn’t mention it to his father.
At 19 years old, he passed a teaching certificate, but found the profession didn't pay well and moved into a pipe works plant instead. In his spare time, he organised a small string orchestra and a quartet. He travelled a lot as a musician, before taking a teaching job with Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) College in Normal, Alabama. Feeling that he and American music were undervalued by the College, Handy resigned, finding more money in actually performing as a musician.
In 1909, Handy took his band, and his family, to Beale Street, Memphis. He wrote his first blues composition was called Mr Crump, written for a mayoral candidate in Memphis. He later renamed the tune Memphis Blues. He sold the rights for just $100, but published the song in 1912. Just two years later, he wrote his most famous composition, St Louis Blues. The latter may have gained greater notoriety when arranged by Glenn Miller for his orchestra as the St Louis Blues March. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Well, the crumblies among you.
Handy wrote a number of tunes, but the first time Handy tried to sell some of his music, he was ripped off by the local department store. They claimed no sales while clocking up hundreds of copies. Handy decided to take control of the situation and set up his own music publishing business, above a bank (the building still exists, just around the corner, apparently). By publishing his own music, he figured no one would be able to steal it from him again. He was right. Not to mention that, by writing down his music, he is the guy everyone remembers. He didn’t claim the title Father of the Blues for himself, there were others playing similar music when he did, but his stuff got written down and published, so that everyone knew his name.
He wasn’t in Memphis that long, as he moved his publishing business to New York. He was very successful and today, his grand-daughter Minnie is still running the publishing company at the age of 79.
There are copies of his published sheet music all around the walls and a lot of photographs. All of his family (parents, children and grandchildren) can be seen in their photographs. The lady who gave us our private tour was very knowledgeable and I only dropped them the one Ted because they didn’t have a website – at least, not one I could find. She did say she’d follow up on that. If you wanna show off, and the guide asks you who the drummer is in the photo, I'll tell you...it's Louis Armstrong. Didn't know he played drums though. I spotted him right away and pointed him out to Paul!
It’s not big by any stretch – with just two rooms to see, it takes about half an hour. But, for $4 when you are already on Beale Street, it’s one that shouldn’t be missed. He is, after all, the guy who invented the blues. Except of course, he didn't, he just wrote 'em down.
Just around the corner, on Beale Street itself, there is a small park - the WC Handy Performing Arts Park (Handy Park, to it's friends) - and there you will find a statue of the man himself.
