W.C. Handy : the life and times of the man who made the blues / David Robertson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Robertson, David, 1947 August 11-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Composers--United States--Biography.

Composers.

Handy, W. C. (William Christopher), 1873-1958.

Handy, W. C.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa, Ala. : University of Alabama Press, [2011]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

David Robertson charts W. C. Handy's rise from a rural-Alabama childhood in the last decades of the nineteenth century to his emergence as one of the most celebrated songwriters of the twentieth century. The child of former slaves, Handy was first inspired by spirituals and folk songs, and his passion for music pushed him to leave home as a teenager, despite opposition from his preacher father. Handy soon found his way to St. Louis, where he spent a winter sleeping on cobblestone docks before lucking into a job with an Indiana brass band. It was in a minstrel show, playing to raci

Contents:

Contents; Prologue: A View of Mr. Handy: One Afternoon in Memphis, 1918; Chapter One: Slavery, the AME Church, and Emancipation: The Handy Family of Alabama, 1811-1873; Chapter Two: W. C. Handy and the Music of Black and White America, 1873-1896; Chapter Three: Jumping Jim Crow: Handy as a Traveling Minstrel Musician, 1896-1900; Chapter Four: Aunt Hagar's Ragtime Son Comes Home to Alabama, 1900-1903; Chapter Five: Where the Southern Crosses the Yellow Dog: Handy and the Mississippi Delta, 1903-1905; Chapter Six: Mr. Crump Don't 'Low: The Birth of the Commercial Blues, 1905-1909

Chapter Seven: Handy's Memphis Copyright Blues, 1910-1913Chapter Eight: Tempo à Blues: Pace & Handy, Beale Avenue Music Publishers, 1913-1917; Chapter Nine: New York City: National Success, the "St. Louis Blues,"and Blues: An Anthology, 1918-1926; Chapter Ten: Symphonies and Movies, Spirituals and Politics, and W. C. Handy as Perennial Performer, 1927-1941; Chapter Eleven: "St. Louis Blues": The Final Performance, 1958; Acknowledgments; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Originally published: New York : Knopf, 2009.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-8173-8604-1

OCLC:

772845426