Handy Brothers Music Company blues composition collection

William Christopher "W.C." Handy (1873-1958) was an African American composer and musician. In the mid-1910s Handy started his own music publishing business in Memphis, Tennessee with fellow songwriter Harry Pace called the Pace & Handy Music Company, later known as the Handy Brothers...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Handy Brothers Music Company, Inc., New York (Creator)
Collection:Handy Brothers Music Company Blues Composition Collection
Collection Number:MSS026
Format: Manuscript
Language:English
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Physical Description: 0.3 Linear feet ; 1 box, 26 items
Summary: William Christopher "W.C." Handy (1873-1958) was an African American composer and musician. In the mid-1910s Handy started his own music publishing business in Memphis, Tennessee with fellow songwriter Harry Pace called the Pace & Handy Music Company, later known as the Handy Brothers Music Company. In 1918 Handy moved his publishing business to Broadway in New York City. Handy was instrumental in promoting blues music to the masses, earning him the nickname "Father of the Blues." The Handy Brothers Music Company blues composition collection, 1916-1920s, consists of a couple of dozen manuscripts for blues songs, including compositions by W. C. Handy, William "King" Phillips, William Nash, James P. Johnson, Eddie Green, J. Berni Barbour, W. Benton Overstreet, Eubie Blake, and others. Most of the collection is handwritten sheet music and lyrics, but there are also some typed lyrics without music, including one set of lyrics in French. Some items are stamped with "Pace & Handy, Memphis."
This collection consists of a couple of dozen manuscripts for blues songs, including compositions by W. C. Handy, William "King" Phillips, William Nash, James P. Johnson, Eddie Green, J. Berni Barbour, W. Benton Overstreet, Eubie Blake, and others. Most of the collection is handwritten sheet music and lyrics, but there are also some typed lyrics without music, including one set of lyrics in French. Some items are stamped with "Pace & Handy, Memphis." The manuscripts and sheet music are arranged by creator. The first folder contains William C. Handy’s handwritten sheet music for “Careless Love” and “Loveless Love”. “Careless Love” is one of the oldest Southern folk melodies. Handy heard it in Bessemer, Alabama in 1892, then titled “Loveless Love”, and wrote it down in 1921. It was reissued in 1925 under the original title “Careless Love”. The second folder has William “King” Phillips, handwritten music scores for “Coburn’s Blues”, “Kindness”, “The Blue Note Rag”, and “The Eagle Rock Rag”. The third folder in the collection has William Nash’s handwritten manuscript for “Buala or Alone” dedicated to his mother Dora Nash who died in 1920. The fourth folder in the collection contains manuscripts for James Price Johnson’s “Symphonic Suite St. Louis Blues”. In the fifth folder there are blues manuscripts from Eddie Green including “Back to Carolina and Caroline” and “You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Gone”. The sixth folder contains manuscripts from James Berni Barbour including “Lovers Lament (My Gal Rocks Me)” and lists him as the “writer of ‘Separation Blues’ ‘Sphinx’ etc.”. The seventh folder of the collection contains William Benton Overstreet’s manuscript for “Dirty Forty”, “It’s Been a Long, Long Time Ago (But I Will Never Forget)”, and “Jump Study Blues”. The eighth folder contains typed lyrics for “Levee Camp Blues” and “County Road Blues” from Alec Lovejoy. Juanita Maury’s typed French lyrics for “St. Louis Blues” reside in the ninth folder. The tenth folder holds the published sheet music for “Sugar” by J. Lawrence Cook. The last folder contains two pieces of handwritten musical manuscripts with no known creator. One piece is untitled but has “Property of Pace and Handy Music. Co, Memphis, Tenn.” written on it. The second is titled “On a Wild Goose Chase”.