ST. LOUIS BLUES

Created on 10/03/2001
Latest update on 21/02/2024

Artist: Prince's Orch.
Author: William Christopher Handy
Label: Columbia
Year: 1916

Written by the father of the blues, William Christopher Handy, first published in 1914. The chorus derives from one of his earlier compositions: The Jogo Blues (1913). Together with his partner Henry Herbert Pace he founded one of the earliest black owned music publishing houses in Memphis, TN against all odds. It took some time before the St. Louis Blues took off. Blues was too new to be accepted overnite. Handy and his band had to wait until 1922 before cutting their own version and ASCAP waited until 1924 before accepting the Pace & Handy Music C°. In '41 Handy's biography Father Of The Blues was published, a bestseller soon to be distributed among soldiers overseas for his firm believe in his country and its values.

Covers:

1917:

Ciro's Club Coon Orch. [black band in London; this vocal version is older than Mamie Smith's Crazy Blues, making it the oldest black blues recording; as a London hotel band their influence overseas was nil]

1919:

Jim Europe's 369th Infantry Band

1920:

Marion Harris

1921:

Original Dixieland Jazz Band

1922:

Handy's Band [author for Black Swan]

1925:

Bessie Smith [with Louis Armstrong and in '29 for eponymous film, with Fletcher Henderson's orchestra]

1927:

Fats Waller [pipe organ version]

1928:

Paul Robeson

1928:

Paul Whiteman

1928:

Emmett Miller

1930:

Louis Armstrong

1930:

Cab Calloway

1930:

Rudy Vallee

1930:

Duke Ellington

1932:

Mills Brothers

1934:

Callahan Brothers [hit for ARC]

1935:

Boswell Sisters

1935:

Bob Wills

1936:

Benny Goodman

1937:

Django Reinhardt

1940:

Billie Holiday [with Benny Carter]

1940s:

Artie Shaw

1940s:

Charlie Parker

1944:

Glenn Miller [as St. Louis March]

1953:

Billy Eckstine

1954:

Perez Prado

1955:

Jo Stafford

1959:

Golden Gate Quartet

1963:

Helen Shapiro

1964:

Jimmy Reed

1964:

Rusty & Doug Kershaw

1969:

Bintangs

1995:

Howard Armstrong

1998:

Mose Allison

1998:

Herbie Hancock

1999:

Asleep At The Wheel [with that other Bob Wills aficionado Merle Haggard]

2004:

Natalie Cole [in film Lightning In A Bottle]

2013:

Hugh Laurie

2017:

Pokey Lafarge [on American Epic]

2020:

Les Blauw

1.500 different recordings of this song in America alone.

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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