W. C. Handy - Father of the blues (1941)

8 Sourced Quotes

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Setting my mind on a musical instrument was like falling in love. All the world seemed bright and changed.

W. C. Handy
With a guitar I would be able to express the things I felt in sounds.

W. C. Handy
A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable.

W. C. Handy
The name of my ailment was longing, and it was not cured till I finally went to the department store and counted out the money in small coins before the dismayed clerk. When I came to the house, I held up the instrument before the eyes of the astonished household.

W. C. Handy
Where the Tennessee River, like a silver snake, winds her way through the clay hills of Alabama, sits high on these hills, my home town, Florence.

W. C. Handy
In the folk blues the singer fills up occasional gaps with words like 'Oh, lawdy' or 'Oh, baby' and the like. This meant that in writing a melody to be sung in the blues manner one would have to provide gaps or waits.

W. C. Handy
I knew the whistle of each of the river boats on the Tennessee.

W. C. Handy
Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as a natural symphony.

W. C. Handy