84 years (1873–1958)

One of many musicians who played the distinctively American blues music, Handy did not create the blues genre but was the first to publish music in the blues form, thereby taking the blues from a regional music style (Delta blues) with a limited audience to a new level of popularity.

Handy worked during the period of transition from ragtime to jazz. Drawing on the vocal blues melodies of African American folklore, he added harmonizations to his orchestral arrangements. His work helped develop the conception of the blues as a harmonic framework within which to improvise.

Woodlawn Cemetery • Crematory • Conservancy, New York, NY

Florence, AL

Fisk University

W.C. Handy, known as “Father of the Blues,” published his “memphis Blues” in 1912, becoming the first song to include “blues” in the title.

Born Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett on April 26, 1886, in Columbus, Georgia; died of heart disease on December 22, 1939, in Rome, Georgia; one of three children of Thomas and Ella Pridgett; married William “Pa” Rainey, in 1904; children: (adopted) son, Danny.

August Wilson based his 1982 play on the real-life 1920s blues singer Ma Rainey, who really did record her first tracks in a Chicago recording studio for Paramount Records. So, yes, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is based on a true story, in that Ma Rainey was a real person, but most of the actual plot is fictional.

(Entry 1 of 2) 1 sometimes capitalized both Bs : a tract of low-lying land with black soil. 2 often capitalized both Bs [probably from black bottom “low-lying section of a southern town occupied primarily by black people”] : an American dance popular from 1926 to 1928 with sinuous movements of the hips and rocking …

Historically, the area of Black Bottom was part of the riverbed of the River Savoyard, which was buried as a sewer in 1827. The rich marsh soils of its bottom are the source of the area’s name.

Jelly Roll Morton

Sammy Davis Jr.

1925

Tango