Playing Blues Guitar - The Father of the Blues

Memphis blues band, Fried Glass Onions - Memphis Meets the Beatles has recorded three Beatles tribute albums. The first was released in 2005. Actually, Fried Glass Onions is not a real group, but a cute packaging idea; the album contains all Beatles songs, but is recorded by individual artists - not one band. What is interesting is that blues musicians had a tremendous influence on the Beatles as well as other British rock composers. Elvis, in particular, was a great influence on Lennon, who idolized him. After numerous attempts to meet Elvis in person, the Beatles finally got their chance on August 27, 1965 during their second USA tour. The meeting took place at Elvis' Bel-Air, California estate, where the magical event took place - they spent approximately four delirious hours as they described it with the King.

But, before Elvis or the Beatles burst onto the American music scene, there was W. C. Handy - the Father of the Blues. Music historians state that the man they crowned Father of the Blues, W. C. Handy, technically did not invent the blues. Rather, the blues were played before Handy even learned how to play a musical instrument, but it was he who first wrote down and published the first blues piece of music. In his own words, he describes his introduction to first hearing the blues as "the weirdest music I had ever heard" (Handy, 74). Indeed, as a youngster, Handy was formally trained in the traditional manner, where he studied classical music, music theory, and composition.

Handy was born in 1873, in Alabama, and began his entertainment career in the 1890s. His first gigs were touring with all black musical troupes. After serving as bandleader of the Mahara's Minstrels for four years, in 1903 Handy moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi where he heard the Blues for the first time. It was from then that Handy began his ascent from being a classically trained coronet musician into a beginner blues guitar player. In 1914, Handy composed "St. Louis Blues," considered one of the most popular blues songs ever recorded.

By the turn of the century, Handy was about to establish himself and his Memphis blues band as an institution in history of music. His genius came when he began to experiment in integrating ragtime with the blues - blues as it was interpreted in the late part of the nineteenth century. Listening to early versions of "Memphis Blues," or rather "Mr. Crump," a political song, which would eventually be reworked into "Memphis Blues," is stylistically more like ragtime than blues. "Mr. Crump," was actually published three years prior to "Memphis Blues" in 1909. Early recorded versions of each are available of Handy playing the guitar and as well as accompanying himself in traditional blues style vocals. Later piano renditions in ragtime, followed by jazz and big band versions, offer the listener a unique experience of musical history in the making. Over the decades, Handy's music has been performed and arranged by hundreds of musicians and performers, and happily continues to grab at the musical heartstrings of new generations, whether they are playing blues guitar, piano, or even coronet.

Decades later, the tide has turned and Memphis bands, especially the mega Memphis blues band, Fried Glass Onions: Memphis Meets the Beatles, find themselves gaining insight and inspiration from the Beatles. To date, Fried Glass Onions: Memphis Meets the Beatles has been so successful that within a year of the first album, an additional two volumes have been released. Indeed, not only was W. C. Handy the father of the blues, but very much a man who unknowingly fathered a melting pot of musical geniuses.

Written by, Brenne Meirowitz, B.A., M.S., M.A. This article, Playing Blues Guitar - The Father of the Blues Fathers Inspires Memphis Blues Band, Fried Glass Onions - Memphis Meets the Beatles, was written while researching information for Rooftop Beatles Concert.

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