Description

Undoubtedly the most long lived and popular blues song ever written is William Christopher Handy’s immortal classic, “St. Louis Blues,” which has almost taken on a life of its own since it was written over eighty years ago. It has been played and enjoyed the world over. According to Handy, he found his inspiration for the song while wandering the streets of St. Louis. One afternoon he met a black woman tormented by her husband’s absence.

She told Handy: “Ma man’s got a heart like a rock cast in de sea.” Handy, forty years old at the time, drew his inspiration for many of his songs from African-American words and music, so it is not surprising that he began to compose the theme to this woman’s anguish. He later said his aim was “to combine ragtime syncopation with a real melody in the spiritual tradition.”

In this course we try to get the underlying feeling of the blues so you can apply what you learn here to other blues songs.

This course contains 1 Instructional DVD