History of Note - W.C. Handy by Classic 107.3

In the fall of 1892, a young Black musician from Alabama found himself struggling to survive in St. Louis. He spent cold nights beneath the Eads Bridge, sleeping on the cobblestoned levee, spending his days looking for whatever work or food he could find. WC Handy was only in St. Louis for a few months, but the sights and sounds he experienced here would later inspire one of the most famous blues songs of all time, the St. Louis Blues.

While living and working along the St. Louis riverfront, Handy, already a professional musician, would bear witness to the musical expressions of African Americans that worked on the steamboats coming and going each day. He described hearing “shabby guitarists picking out a tune called “East St. Louis” - with lots of one-line verses and they would sing it all night.”
St. Louis Blues has been recorded over 1600 times by musicians from around the globe. It was one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song and remains a standard for jazz and blues musicians today.

Of course, most St. Louisans would say the song’s biggest legacy is found in the name of our beloved hockey team, the St. Louis Blues.