Beale Street Blues

Beale Street Blues is a blues and jazz song, the 1916 WC Handy wrote. The title became a jazz standard.

Historical Background

WC Handy came to Memphis in 1909, where he met with local musicians in " Pee Wee 's Saloon " in Beal Avenue. In 1912 he founded in New York City with Harry Herbert Pace Pace & Handy Music Company as its own music publishing company that managed his compositions. Also, the Beale Street Blues, which was first published in 1916 under the title of Beale Street, was part of its repertoire.

The Beal Avenue - without the "e " at the end - can be found in 1841 on the map of the city; maybe it was named after the soldiers heroes Edward F. Beale, a lieutenant and sniper the Navy. It was originally inhabited by a white middle-class street, which is increasingly transformed after 1890 to an inhabited area of African-Americans and then became an entertainment center. Handy claimed he had the song written directly to one of the restaurants of the road. As mobile phones Song Beale Street Blues was known, renamed it to Beale Street. Unlike Edward Crump, Mayor of Memphis, later claimed that the Blues was not written for his campaign, 1909. Crump mistook the composition with the Memphis Blues, had written the phone for his candidacy, but later umtextete.

Features of the song

The original composition was arranged and published for piano and voice. The three-line stanzas written in the blues style to the actual ( twelve bar ) Blue theme are preceded by a verse (verses ) in the Tin Pan Alley - style 16-bar. The melody of blues verses is played by the left hand and was inspired by the play of pianists from the club " The Monarch " in the Beale Street. The right hand increases with an " Eight -to-the - bar" rhythm of the boogie woogie anticipate, but also used interpolations from the Jazz. The lyrics of the song " portrays a street of dealers and artists, where money, love, crime and music reign ". Cell phone records in the text of the verses, the first compares the Beale Street with the Broadway, the Prado and other known streets and neighborhoods and recommends that it be regarded as the first, a " rough genre picture "; thereby also a blind blues singer is mentioned, which then the actual sings the blues ( in the twelve-bar scheme) and is satisfied with the place at the Beale Street: "I 'm more here than any other place I know ." The text has been amended many times by later interpreters.

Starting the recording mode

However, the composer WC Handy took his first work not even on. On 24 May 1917 the band of Prince Charles Beale Street Blues with Columbia Records played an under Numer 2327; this initial reception placed on fifth of the pop charts. It was in the occupation of Charles A. Prince ( Conductor), Bohumir Kryl and Vincent C. Buono (trumpet ), Leo Zimmerman (trombone ), Thomas Hughes ( clarinet), Marshall P. Lufsky (flute ), Charles d' Almaine and Walter Biedermann (violin), Ed Rubsam and Howard Kopp ( percussion) interpreted.

( Victor 18369 with clarinetist Ted Lewis) on the first cover version on 13 August 1917, the Famous Jazz Band by Earl Fuller took; she brought Phones Music Publishing, a license fee of $ 1857 and was listed in eighth place on the pop charts. Phones Memphis blues band took the title in September 1919 for the small label Lyric (# 4209 ); In 1922, the band played one at Paramount and Black Swan remakes.

Popularity

1919 of title by the Broadway musical Shubert 's Gaieties of 1919 became popular, herein sung by Gilda Gray. After its premiere on 17 July 1919, the musical ended after only 87 performances on 18 October 1919 ( after it had already been on strike from 9 August to 8 September 1919). Nevertheless ranged from the short performance time to further publicize the Beale Street Blues.

More pictures were taken by Art Hickman ( recorded on 20 September 1919) and George Olsen (25 July 1924). Alberta Hunter recorded the song on 20 May 1927, accompanied only by Fats Waller on the organ. Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers immortalized in the title of an instrumental version on June 10, 1927 published in November 1927 Original Memphis Five attacked him on April 5, 1929.; Benny Goodman was on February 9, 1931, singer Jack Teagarden and the Charleston Chasers ns studio to devote himself to the song (Brunswick 7645 ); Ben Pollack followed on March 2, 1931 Joe Venutis All Star Orchestra ( with Eddie Lang and Jack Teagarden and Benny Goodman) on 22 October 1931. Teagarden made ​​the title later to his signature tune.

In 1935 a cover version of Bob Crosby. Tommy Dorsey (Victor 25767 ) took the title with his orchestra on May 26, 1937 Duke Ellington played the blues first time on 26 August 1946. Lena Horne was in their version of the Dixieland Jazz Group accompanied ( October 1946 ); eventually followed by Louis Armstrong (12 July 1954). In Europe, Chris Barber popularized by singer Ottilie Patterson on the EP That Patterson Girl Volume 2 (9 July 1956) the song. Also, Johnny Hodges (1959 ), Johnny Maddox (1959) and Eartha Kitt (1990 ) interpreted the piece, which was then maintained, especially in the Dixieland repertoire.

Importance

Overall, there are at least 33 versions. In the U.S., the Beale Street Blues is now public domain. He he heard beside Phones St. Louis Blues and its Memphis blues to the compositions that are today perceived as original blues tracks, although they also contain all the Habanera elements.

The song is used in two feature films: In The I Do not Care Girl ( Premiere on January 20, 1953), he is one of 13 songs. On April 7, 1958, the film St. Louis Blues over the life of the recently deceased phone with Nat King Cole in the lead role Premiere. Cole sings his version of the herein Beale Street Blues.

James Baldwin was his fifth novel, a title that refers to the Beale Street Blues. The English book title If Beale Street Could Talk is taken from one of the verses of the song.