William Christopher (W.C.) Handy (1873-1958) was born in Florence, Alabama to former slaves on November 16, 1873. His father was a preacher, and while W.C. took to music as a child, his father discouraged it. W.C. used money he earned from making soap and picking nuts and berries to buy a guitar, but “his father made him return it for a refund and buy a dictionary,” said David Guion. Despite his father’s objections, Handy became a musician.
In 1903, Handy went to conduct a band in Clarksdale, Mississippi, called the Knights of Pythias. That year, while waiting for a train at the Tutwiler depot, about 16 miles southeast of Clarksdale, Handy witnessed an African American man playing a guitar and using a knife for his slide. “His face,” Handy wrote, in his 1941 autobiography, “had on it the sadness of the ages...." He called it “the weirdest music [he] had ever heard.”
As the Knights of Pythias played throughout the Delta, Handy kept hearing the blues and added to the band’s music.
W. C. Handy got his start to fame on the Kate Adams. The Captain needed a band to entertain the young crowd aboard from Memphis to Arkansas City at reduced rates. The “youngsters” wanted music and without it, excursions were losing money. Handy started playing for $5 and room and board per trip with his six band members. They played from breakfast through dinner, all the way up until 1 A.M. The band was a crowd pleaser and soon enough, the Kate Adams was carrying capacity crowds each trip.
Handy made the Blues popular through “sheet music and the vaudeville stage prior to the era of blues recordings from 1920.” A composer, trumpet player, and music producer, Handy played a pivotal role in promoting the blues. His Memphis Blues, published in 1912, was “a game-changer” according to Gordon. And Robin Banerji, of the BBC, declares that the Memphis Blues “would take the US by storm ...” and “launched the blues as a mass entertainment genre that would transform popular music worldwide.”
Handy would go on to play on other riverboats. At one time he was playing eight trips a week on the Pattona, and later published the “Pattona Rag” in 1913. In 1914, Handy published the St. Louis Blues, his most popular song, and in 1916, he wrote the Beale Street Blues, elevating the street’s popularity.