St. Louis Blues (song)

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St. Louis Blues - 9 bars, tenor saxophone

"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. It has been performed by numerous musicians of all styles from Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith to Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, and the Boston Pops Orchestra. It has been called "the jazzman's Hamlet". 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.

History

Handy said he had been inspired by a chance meeting with a woman on the streets of St. Louis distraught over her husband's absence, who lamented, "Ma man's got a heart like a rock cast in de sea", a key line of the song. Details of the story vary. Robert Palmer states that Handy encountered the melody in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1892, when he was out of work. It had numerous one-line verses "and they would sing it all night."

At the time of his death in 1958, Handy was earning royalties upwards of US$25,000 annually for the song. The original published sheet music is available online at the United States Library of Congress in a searchable database of African-American music from Brown University.

Analysis

The form is unusual in that the verses are the now familiar standard twelve-bar blues in common time with three lines of lyrics, the first two lines repeated, but it also has a 16-bar bridge written in the habanera rhythm, popularly called the "Spanish Tinge", and identified by Handy as tango Handy's tango-like rhythm is notated as a dotted quarter note, followed by an eighth, and two quarter notes, with no slurs or ties, and is seen in the introduction as well as the sixteen-measure bridge.

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Excerpt from "St. Louis Blues" by W.C. Handy (1914). The left hand plays the habanera rhythm.

While blues became often simple and repetitive in form, "Saint Louis Blues" has multiple complementary and contrasting strains, similar to classic ragtime compositions. Handy said his objective in writing "Saint Louis Blues" was "to combine ragtime syncopation with a real melody in the spiritual tradition."

With traditional New Orleans and New Orleans style bands, the tune is one of a handful that includes a set traditional solo. The clarinet solo with a distinctive series of rising partials was first recorded by Larry Shields on the 1921 Original Dixieland Jass Band record. It is not found on any earlier recordings nor published orchestrations of the tune. Shields is often credited with creating this solo; however, alternative claims have been made for other early New Orleans clarinetists, including Emile Barnes.

Performances

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Writing about the first time "St Louis Blues" was played (1914), Handy notes that "The one-step and other dances had been done to the tempo of Memphis Blues... When St Louis Blues was written the tango was in vogue. I tricked the dancers by arranging a tango introduction, breaking abruptly into a low-down blues. My eyes swept the floor anxiously, then suddenly I saw lightning strike. The dancers seemed electrified. Something within them came suddenly to life. An instinct that wanted so much to live, to fling its arms to spread joy, took them by the heels."

Researcher Guy Marco, in his book Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound in the United States, stated that the first audio recording of "Saint Louis Blues" was by Al Bernard in July 1918 on the record company label Aeolian-Vocalion (cat. no. 12148). This is however not true, since Columbia's house band, directed by Charles A. Prince, had recorded a released instrumental version already in December 1915 (Columbia A5772). Bernard's version may have been the first US issue to include the lyrics though. However, by then Ciro's Club Coon Orchestra, a group of black American artists appearing in Britain, had already recorded a version including the lyrics in September 1917 (UK Columbia 699).

Since the 1910s, the number has enjoyed great popularity not only as a song but also as an instrumental.

Many of jazz's most well-known artists in history have given renowned performances of the tune. The following is an incomplete list of the hundreds of musicians of renown who recorded "Saint Louis Blues," chosen as examples that are early in their careers and in the era of its greatest popularity.

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• 1920 – Marion Harris
• 1921 – Original Dixieland Jass Band
• 1922 – W. C. Handy
• 1925 – Bessie Smith, backed by Louis Armstrong on cornet and Fred Longshaw on harmonium.
• 1926 – Fats Waller recorded as an organ solo for Victor Records.
• 1927 - Wild Man Blues
• 1927 – Sylvester Weaver
• 1928 – Al Bernard as "John Bennett" (Madison 1642)
• 1929 – Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra with Henry "Red" Allen
• 1930 – Rudy Vallee, Cab Calloway, the Mills Brothers, the Boswell Sisters, Jim Jackson
• 1933 – The Whiskey Bottle Boys, played on a water bottle xylophone
• 1934 – Paul Robeson recorded it in London on February 20, 1934. It was released by EMI on the His Master's Voice label B 8219.
• 1935 – Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli
• 1935 – Bob Wills
• 1939 – Benny Goodman
• 1940 – Earl Hines rendition titled "Boogie Woogie On The St. Louis Blues". Hines can be heard saying, "Aw, play it till 1951", the year the original copyright was to expire.
• 1943 – Glenn Miller "St. Louis Blues -- March" as played by the U.S. Army Air Force Band, of which Miller was the commander.
• 1945 – Annie Laurie with the Dallas Bartley Band for Cosmo Records.
• 1949 – Art Tatum
• 1952 – Chet Atkins on his first recording, Chet Atkins' Gallopin' Guitar
• 1953 – Billy Eckstine with Metronome All-Stars: recorded by Roy Eldridge, Kai Winding, John LaPorta, Warne Marsh, Lester Young, Teddy Wilson, Billy Bauer, Eddie Safranski, Terry Gibbs, Max Roach
• 1954 – Louis Armstrong recorded the song numerous times, including a version on Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy.
• 1950s – Moon Mullican sang and played the song on the Grand Ol' Opry.
• 1956 – The Teen Kings, featuring Roy Orbison - "St. Louis Blues" and other songs recorded at KOSA-TV, Odessa, Texas, 1956.
• 1957 – Louis Prima recorded the song on the album The Wildest Comes Home!.
• 1958 – The release of St. Louis Blues, a biopic of Handy, who had died earlier in the year. The star of the film, Nat King Cole, recorded an album of songs from the film, and fellow star, Ella Fitzgerald incorporated the song into her repertoire.
• 1959 – John Fahey recorded the song on the album Blind Joe Death, re-recorded in 1967.
• 1964 – Judy Garland and Martha Raye performed it as the final piece in a medley of Glenn Miller songs on The Judy Garland Show.
• 1964 – Chuck Berry recorded a version for Chuck Berry in London.
• 1967 – Mina sang an orchestra version at Italian TV program Sabato Sera (Saturday night).
• 1967 – Jaki Byard recorded with his trio (Byard: piano, David Izenzon: bass, Elvin Jones: drums) for Sunshine of My Soul.
• 1968 – Paul McCartney used this song to set the mood for the recording sessions for 'Hey Jude' and The Beatles can be heard busking the tune on the many bootleg recordings of the sessions.
• 1970 – Jula de Palma sang a beat version of this song in a successful concert recorded on the LP Jula al Sistina.
• 1973 – Enrique Villegas
• 1976 – The Flamin' Groovies on Shake Some Action (Chuck Berry's version)
• 1985 – Doc Watson recorded the song on the album Pickin' the Blues and has played his version for many years.
• 1986 – Hank Williams Jr. recorded the song as part of a medley on Montana Cafe.
• 1994 – George Thorogood & the Destroyers performed the song with Johnnie Johnson at Mississippi Nights, which was released on Thorogood's 1995 album Live: Let's Work Together
• 1998 – Stevie Wonder recorded the song on Herbie Hancock's jazz album Gershwin's World and won the two Grammys in 1999.
• 1999 – Merle Haggard and Asleep at the Wheel performed "St. Louis Blues" on the Bob Wills tribute album Ride with Bob.
• 2001 – Dexter Romweber
• 2001 – Aki Takase recorded the song for her album of the same name.
• 2002 – Peter Cincotti in his album On the Moon
• 2008 – David Sanborn covered the song from his 2008 release Here & Gone.
• 2008 – Jack Rose on the album Dr. Ragtime & Pals/Self Titled
• 2013 - Hugh Laurie recorded a version for his album Didn't It Rain (Hugh Laurie album)

In popular culture

Films

A number of short and feature films have been entitled St. Louis Blues; see: St. Louis Blues (film).

"St. Louis Blues" is played in the 1914 Charles Chaplin film, The Star Boarder as well as later being sung by Theresa Harris and played several times, including the opening credits, in the 1933 film Baby Face. The song is also sung by Marcellite Garner as Minnie Mouse in the 1931 animated short film, Blue Rhythm. It is played a number of times in the 1936 film, Banjo on my Knee, by Walter Brennan and is sung as a major production number by the Hall Johnson Choir as Barbara Stanwyck looks on.

As an instrumental, the song is featured in Lewis Milestone's early talkie, Rain, in which it comes to symbolize the wanton ways of the main character Sadie Thompson, played by Joan Crawford.

Other

The St. Louis Blues NHL team is named after the W.C. Handy song, and their theme song is Miller's version of the Handy composition.

The title of William Faulkner's short story "That Evening Sun" (published 1931) references the famous opening lyrics from "Saint Louis Blues".

"About Her" by Malcolm McLaren (from Kill Bill Vol. 2 Original Soundtrack) samples this song – in particular the line, "My man's got a heart... like a rock cast in the sea".

In Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist play No Exit, Estelle talks about how she and Peter, one of her admirers, used to dance to "Saint Louis Blues".

A unique oddity is the relationship of the "Saint Louis Blues" and the song "Memphis, Tennessee" by Chuck Berry. The composers of these two songs lived in the other city; W.C. Handy was from Memphis, and Chuck Berry was from St. Louis. Yet they both wrote the song most associated with the other's hometown.

See also

• List of pre-1920 jazz standards

References

• Handy, W.C. (1941). Bontemps, Arna Wendell. ed. Father of the Blues: An Autobiography. New York City: Macmillan CompanyTemplate:Inconsistent citations 

External links

• The 20th Century's Greatest Hit
• Sheet Music at Duke University digital collection