The Memphis Blues - New York

New York

Handy first published the song as an instrumental. Handy immediately sold it to music publisher Theron Bennett who took it to New York to attempt to promote it. Handy later claimed he had been robbed. In any case, Bennett convinced George "Honey Boy" Evans to use it for his "Honey Boy" Minstrels. Bennett hired professional songwriter, George A. Norton, to write words for it and Evans had his director, Edward V. Cupero, arrange it for his band. Bennett published it a year later but still the sheet music did poorly. Bennett's 1913 publication advertises it as "Founded on W.C. Handy's World Wide "Blue" Note Melody."

It wasn't until Victor Recording Company's (Victor Military Band, Victor 17619, July 15, 1914) and Columbia's (Prince's Band, Columbia A-5591, July 24) house bands recorded the song in 1914 that "The Memphis Blues" began to do well.

Read more about this topic:  The Memphis Blues

Famous quotes containing the word york:

    As for your friend, my prospective reader, I hope he ignores Fort Sumter, and “Old Abe,” and all that; for that is just the most fatal, and, indeed, the only fatal weapon you can direct against evil ever; for, as long as you know of it, you are particeps criminis. What business have you, if you are an “angel of light,” to be pondering over the deeds of darkness, reading the New York Herald, and the like.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The rumor of a great city goes out beyond its borders, to all the latitudes of the known earth. The city becomes an emblem in remote minds; apart from the tangible export of goods and men, it exerts its cultural instrumentality in a thousand phases.
    —In New York City, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)