"Life is something like a trumpet. If you don't put anything in, you won't get anything out." Legendary African-American musician and composer W. C. Handy, who considered himself to be the "father of the blues." Credited with self-publishing the first blues song, his "The Memphis Blues" on this day in 1912, Handy brought Mississippi delta blues / Southern rag music to wide public attention as a distinct musical genre. He followed up with "St. Louis Blues" in 1914, and continued to blaze a trail for blues artists that followed him. Handy once defined the blues this way: "The blues. The sound of a sinner on revival day." That's about as close as comes.
