by Elliott Hurwitt | Oct 17, 2018 | Song of the Day
W.C. Handy’s great “Yellow Dog Blues” incorporates an idea he picked up in the Mississippi Delta during his residencies in Clarksdale, Mississippi (1903-1905) then Memphis, his home base for endless gigs up through 1917. “Yellow Dog” was...
by Elliott Hurwitt | Oct 16, 2018 | Song of the Day
Handy’s first hit, “Memphis Blues,” was self-published as a piano rag, which Handy sold, lock, stock and barrel, to a clever music publisher visiting Memphis on business in 1912. The loss of royalty income due to this transaction haunted Handy for...
by Elliott Hurwitt | Oct 15, 2018 | Song of the Day
We kick off our week of W.C. Handy songs with his biggest hit, “St. Louis Blues,” a song that has been so-often recorded that no full accounting of the recordings is possible, to be counted in thousands, not hundreds, starting in 1914. Handy wrote the song on a...
by Michael Barrett | Oct 12, 2018 | Song of the Day
This week I’ve been looking at some pretty famous songwriters who achieved fame for their populist style of singing and their unusual songs, Leonard Cohen and Joan Baez for example. Today my choice is Randy Newman. He’s one of our great American songwriters, but what...
by Michael Barrett | Oct 10, 2018 | Song of the Day
What is a populist voice? People talk about Johnny Cash and sometimes Willy Nelson as authentic folksters, singing about the American experience, failures and aspirations. NYFOS was recently at Exeter Academy, one of our finest prep schools. I was busy conducting ...
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