The St. Louis Blues
W.C. Handy & his Memphis Orchestra (circa 1918). Handy is in the rear with trumpet in hand.
Saint Louis Blues is a popular American song composed by W. C. Handy in the blues style. It remains a fundamental part of jazz musicians' repertoire. It was also one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song.
Published in September 1914 by Handy's own company, it later gained such popularity that it inspired the dance step the "Foxtrot". The version with Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong on cornet was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1993. The 1929 version by Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra (with Henry "Red" Allen) was inducted there in 2008.
The original sheet music to St. Louis Blues
The song is a standard 12 bar blues but Handy added an unconventional 16 bar bridge with an exotic tango like rhythm.
St. Louis Blues was such a popular song that Handy was still earning upwards of $25,000 a year in royalties on the song at the time of his death in 1958.
This 1914 version of
St. Louis Blues by Handy & the Memphis Orchestra was the best selling 78 rpm single record since the 1906 invention of the Victrola record player.