W.C. Handy wrote “The St. Louis Blues” and the “Beale Street Blues,” a song that helped make the Memphis thoroughfare famous, but his reputation in the pantheon of blues legends has been maligned by some who scoff at his self-declaration as the Father of the Blues, the title of Handy’s 1941 autobiography. Robertson (Denmark Vesey
) undertakes a study to vindicate Handy’s life from his birth in 1873 to his death in 1958, tracing his roots as the musically educated son of a minister and an ex-slave in Florence, Ala., to his success as a composer, band leader and music publisher in New York. Handy, whose initial ambition was to write marches in the style of John Philip Sousa, first heard folk blues in Cleveland, Miss., around 1903 and soon became one of the very first to publish blues scores and write songs for a national audience. Robertson’s work is a fascinating look at not only Handy’s life but the history and business of American music, particularly regarding late 19th century and early 20th century African-Americans, many of whom performed, as Handy did, in traveling minstrel shows. (Mar.)
