Pioneering African-American musician (1873–1958), known as the Father of the Blues, who wrote such hits as “Memphis Blues” and “St. Louis Blues.” Superlative TLS, three pages, 8.5 x 11, Handy Brothers Music Co. letterhead, June 4, 1954. Handy writes to Thomas K. Boyce in Louvain, Belgium. Part of the letter is evidently a form letter; part is specific to the recipient. In part: “When I was on Galen Drake’s Radio Program recently a young group sang ‘The Memphis Blues’ with all the frills and furbelows, and when they finished he asked me ‘How do you like it’ and I said ‘Time Marches On’ and everybody laughed, but 42 years have lapsed since Memphis heard that song which changed the course of popular music in America, and sent Jazz around the world. The aftermath of the Supreme Court decision on Segregation in certain schools now in our hearts and minds and on our lips may flower into a new social order demanding a new song and what it will be is anybody’s guess, yet I hope to be around to add a few notes to the finale. That ‘Time marches On’ is made more revealing through a letter just received from Duke Ellington, which I quote in part: ‘It is no accident that American music has always been true to the traditions of American Freedom and Independence, for so much of it has been created by men and women who in the act of living their lives, were constantly fighting the battle of Democracy. Thus George Gershwin, a Jew, is one of the most distinguished of all American musicians. W. C. handy, a Negro, is the Father of the Blues, an entirely original musical form. Arturo Toscanini, of Italian birth, is the world’s greatest living conductor’…. The kind expressions contained in your letter about my generosity represented in timely discussion of human rights I consider ‘Bread cast on the waters that may be gathered many days hence,’ and what you are saying comes in letters from all parts of the country…. The University of Alabama just sent me a tape recording of a playlet which is my life’s story as a youth working for money to buy a guitar, and after purchasing it my Dad made me exchange it for a Webster Unabridged Dictionary and now this record was made by students of two Negro colleges and will be something that I can leave to posterity since it’s beautifully done with spiritual music…. Thank you for letter me know that you are one of those who wrote President Eisenhower in my behalf. I congratulation you on the study of medicine at the University of Louvain and if you have ever read my book, ‘Unsung Americans Sung’ the chapter ‘Recession’ in which I extolled Doctors and Nurses for having saved my life at Harlem Hospital after a fall in the Subway with a fractured skull you will understand what I think now of Doctors, and, of course, this led me to founding the W. C. handy Foundation for the Blind, Inc., wherein I have probably earned the ‘Father of the Blues’ as a sort of title and trademark. I have kept my fingers on the pulse of my people in American and Africa, I am thereby entitled to quote with pride ‘I care not who writes the Nation’s laws /If I can write the Nation’s songs’….” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope and a “Handy News” newsletter mentioned elsewhere in the letter. Mailing fold through signature and light handling wear, otherwise fine condition. Surely one of the most exceptional and revealing Handy letters extant! RRAuction COA.
