Handy Museum Open in 1970

Museum in Florence Honors Handy

Anniston Star - 1970

FLORENCE, AL -- Sixty-one years ago in a small honky tonk known as Pee Wee's Place in Memphis, William Christopher Handy put his trumpet to his lips and blew in a new era of music, a type of music that was to influence compositions for generations.

On Sunday Florence will honor W. C. Handy for his contributions to the world of blues music. More than 40 of the top names in the blues and jazz fields will gather Sunday night for a concert in memory of the man that made the blues a part of the musical world. 

On that night in 1909, W.C. Handy tuned up his hand and played a composition he had written for a political campaign. And while the song was first known as "Mr. Crump's Song,” it became known to the world as “Memphis Blues.”

Handy, whose "Memphis Blues” and "St. Louis Blues” became the standards of a new musical era, always reminded interviewers that he was from Florence and his family insisted after his death in 1958 that his personal effects and musical collections go to that city. 

Handy, band director at Alabama A&M College in Huntsville, continued his musical interests up to his final years although he was blind for the latter portion of his life. On display in the Handy Museum in Florence will be a Braille dictionary he used. 

The museum will open Monday and will feature the famed trumpet that Handy used from 1920 on. Also on display will be the original scores of his compositions, and the many letters. plaques and written tributes that he received during his career. 

Handy's home, a small two-room log cabin, has been moved several blocks from where he was born and a large room added at the rear to provide for the many items the Handy family has given to the museum. 

The Florence Chamber of Commerce hopes to make the blues concert an annual affair. Handy's widow, brother, sister, daughter and two sons will attend the concert and museum opening. Performing at the concert at the Florence State University Fine Arts Auditorium will be the Olympia March Band of New Orleans, the Ronnie Cole Trio, Blanche Thomas, who has been singing for nearly a half century, Lou Sino and the Bengals, Danny Baker and possibly Pete Fountain or Al Hurt. 

Handy Music Company, started by the composer in 1919 in New York City, is still operating and being run by his sons. An autobiography has been reissued by McMillan and Company as part of the celebration of his hometown. Florence’s leading bookstore has had trouble keeping the new paperback edition in stock

Jimmy Odum, of the Florence Chamber of Commerce, said that the movie about Handy’s life will be shown at a Florence Theatre during the two days of activities. The late Nat King Cole played Handy in the movie. 

Handy was fond of his hometown and often came back to visit. On one such visit, V-E Day he stood outside the Florence Times and played God Bless America. 

When times were bad for Handy in the 1890s, he had to sleep on the cobblestones of the levee of the Mississippi, and at other times in a chair in a poolroom. The uncomfortable beds caused one admirer to comment later, 

“No wonder he hated to see that evening sun go down.”

But the Father of the Blues later said those days of misery contributed to the making of the St. Louis Blues.

I like to think that the song reflects a life filled with hard times as well as good times.  

"Blue Metamorphosis" Recognized Rightly, But its Simply not the Same Blues Foundation

"Life is the blues. Not necessarily all good. Not necessarily all bad. It's a feeling that can't be faked." - Jontavious Willis - His first recorded album, Blue Metamorphosis, first became available on his website. He's also got Jock Webb on there, which should have an effect similar to telling Jules from Pulp Fiction that Winston Wolf is coming. Do you feel better about grabbing a copy of his debut knowing about the appearance of Jock Webb? [grinning] "Shit, yeah! That's all you had to say!"

A few years ago, Jock Webb walked on stage in Memphis and won the International Blues Challenge (IBC), but the judges did not agree with our assessment and handed the hardware off to another contestant.  The IBC regained some of its integrity in 2018 when it made a correct decision and handed the...

Award for Best Self-Produced CD to Jontavious Willis for his debut album, Blue Metamorphosis!

The album was always deserving of an award, and I sincerely congratulate my friend on the production of such a high-quality debut.  Perhaps most responsible for the IBC award was the Atlanta Blues Society, for it was almost certainly their nomination that put the freshmen recording effort in the race in the first place.  We know that the IBC made the right decision about this award--what a refreshing, yet unfortunately novel, a concept that should be done for all awards in the future.

 

A Disturbing Development Revealed

Acting on the concerns of Jock Webb, and after conducting a little research into the history of the awards, the MZMF has discovered a disturbing development.  Since the inception of the awards at the Blues Foundation, each of them had been given in a specific category and each award had been given on the basis of merit.  Beginning in 2016, this policy changed, and the following examination of a single award for "Historic Preservation" will illuminate this problem.

The Historic Preservation Award had always been a very important part of the Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, having gone almost every year to a major leader or institution involved in the blues.  In 2016, the Blues Foundation did away with this important award in favor of doling out awards of a general nature, and sometimes with no regard for industry standards and practices.

Historic Preservation Award Recipients since 1981

David Evans in 1981

Sid Graves in 1989

Bob Koester, Delmark Records in 1990 

Larry Cohn, Roots N’ Blues Series, Columbia Records - 1991

Center for Southern Folklore - 1993

Skip Henderson 

(founder of the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund)

1995

Delta Blues Museum - 1996

Blues Archive at University of Mississippi - 1997

David Sanjek–New York, NY - 1998

Yazoo Records - 1999

Maxwell Street Historical Preservation Coalition - 2000

Johnny Parth of Document Records - 2001

Blue Heaven Studios & Revenant Records and John Fahey - 2002

Nuthin’ But The Blues - 2003

Europas Blues Senter, Nottoden, Norway - 2004

Music Maker Relief Foundation, Hillsborough, NC - 2005

River Museum Experience – Davenport, IA - 2006

Howlin’ Wolf Blues Society, West Point, MS - 2007

Mississippi Blues Commission and MDA, Division of Tourism, Jackson, MS - 2008

Shack Up Inn, Clarksdale, MS - 2009

Eric Leblanc, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada - 2010

Canada South Blues Museum – Windsor, Ontario, Canada - 2011

No Award in 2012

Critters – Clarksdale, Mississippi - 2013

George Mitchell – Fort Myers, Florida - 2014

Guido van Rijn Overveen, The Netherlands - 2015

In 2016, the Blues Foundation quit handing out the specific award for historic preservation and started handing out general awards for general blues stuff.  It is antithetical to give out an award won by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund to another organization that intentionally leaves out families and does no research whatsoever before throwing down the cheapest possible stone, which several times have been stolen and sometimes have been thrown  down in the wrong cemeteries out of pride and disrespect.  To give an award to a group that intentionally disregards and ignores the standard practices of respect, decency, and inclusive practice has no place on this list, even with a more general blanket award for having done blues stuff. I am filled with hope that their moratorium on intentionally disrespectful projects will end with their latest milestone.  I won't say the devil's name.  No one ever cares about preservation much in Mississippi.  

We do.  Now that's the deep blues.  

 

Mississippi Women in Blues!

In celebration of Black History month Fancy, the Son, and Friends of Junior Kimbrough in partnership with the Leotyne Price Library at Rust College presents: Mississippi Women in Blues! A presentation of photographs, films, and archival material celebrates native Afro-American female presence in the Mississippi Blues world.

Black History Month begins 2/1/2018 - 2/28/2018
#BlackHistoryMonth #Celebration #VisitHollySpringsMS #RustCollege

"Memphis Burns Brighter" w/ Bill Pichette

By Bill Pichette - December 20, 2017

The Little Pitcher Project - Charlie Burse Project

Nobody is as Serious about Burying the
Bull as Bill and his Team

I envisioned taking a stroll, maybe having to beat through some bushes or tall grass, then finding his grave, screaming out “A-HA!” listening to one of his songs, and sending a picture. But when I found Rose Hill Cemetery off Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis, there was a tree uprooted and broken by a recent storm laying in front of the gate. That should have been a warning. The first obstacle in my search, but not the day this mystery began.

When Will Shade returned to Memphis he had an idea. He gathered musicians with various talents so he could form a “jug” band like the ones he saw and heard in Louisville Kentucky. The group had a date set to record but Shade thought something was missing. He heard a young musician from Decatur Alabama playing and singing in a bar in 1928, liked what he heard, and invited the man to record with the band, which was elastic in its membership anyway. The young man provided vocals for that session’s “On The Road Again” and added his guitar for the classic “Lindberg Hop” and others. But that is not the day this mystery began.

Will Shade, Dewey Corley, & _____

Today, the small graveyard is peaceful and maintained. But Rose Hill Cemetery has a terrible past. Along with evidence of other crimes, in 1994 three murder victims were dumped there - evidence shows they were buried alive under a casket. These events sparked action from neighbors and local Cane Creek (MBE) Church. In 1979 bones were found above ground, funeral homes were fined, and the cemetery owner was murdered. All part of Rose Hill’s story, but not when my mystery began.

I met DeWayne Moore, Executive Director of Mt. Zion Memorial Fund, on another day in another cemetery at a ceremony for another Memphis music legend - Frank Stokes. That’s what Moore and “the Fund” do - locate and mark lost graves of musicians who had an impact, though many are not widely known, and help preserve or save the cemeteries they’re in. We got back in touch some months later, and then he asked me to attempt to locate a grave, which led me to mentally mark a grid and walk the cemetery the way I used to train post-incident recon teams to do - and my initial research. But those days are not where this mystery began.

On this day, I reflect on small success - finding some stories and the grave of the young man’s Mother at Rose Hill - and the failure of finding knowledgeable contacts and lost records. On this day in 1965, the day this mystery began, Charlie Burse, the longtime partner of Will Shade in the Memphis Jug Band and bandleader of the short-lived Memphis Mudcats, died of heart disease in Memphis and was later buried in Rose Hill Cemetery.

View the discoveries of Bill's Burning Project Team HERE

Bill's Blog Burns Too