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Article: The rebirth of the blues.(music)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- May 4, 1996
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IN 1903 a young black musician named W.C. Handy found himself drowsily waiting for a train in a small Mississippi town. Handy was a well-schooled professional--a singer, cornet soloist and conductor--but he had never heard anything like the sound spontaneously produced by a ragged black guitarist, singing and playing a strange, hypnotic tune. As he later recalled, "Life suddenly took me by the shoulder and wakened me with a start."
This was W.C. Handy's first encounter with the blues, a form which, in a few years, would have the same galvanizing effect on America and the world. One of the agents of its dissemination was Handy himself, who became known as "The Father ...