Memphis might not enjoy the near-mythic reputation of Chicago, but its role in the evolution of the blues is just as important. Set at the northernmost edge of the Mississippi Delta, Memphis has long been a mid-South magnet for blues artists seeking to make records or play in Beale Street blues joints.
Memphis has also produced its own share of great blues artists, beginning with W.C. Handy, the so-called Father of the Blues, in the early 1900s. The city supported a vibrant jug-band and street-corner blues scene in the late '20s and beyond, while makeshift blues bands worked local fish fries and other social gatherings. In short, Memphis was a prewar blues Mecca, much the way Chicago
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was in the years after World War II, after the great African-American migration north.
To prove this, Memphis Archives, a new reissue label run by Richard Hite, the former bass player in Canned Heat, has released a batch of historically significant compilations that sheds new light on Memphis' long relationship with the blues.
W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band didn't play the kind of primitive, guitar-driven country blues the bandleader heard in the Delta at the turn of the century. Instead, his 12-piece ensemble concentrated on rags, early jazz and contemporary dance tunes with a blues slant. But Handy was the first composer to take advantage of the blues form in legitimate music circles by writing and publishing such classics as "Yellow Dog Blues" and "St. Louis Blues."
Oddly, the Memphis Archives collection, which is composed of rare material the Handy band recorded in 1917 and in 1922 to '23, doesn't include the earliest Handy gem, "Memphis Blues," a tune that made Handy and his home city forever famous in the blues community. Still, this disc, with its lively orchestral arrangements, reveals that not all early blues was rough edged and raw.
Handy wasn't the only composer to pen songs about Memphis. Even if Memphis Town isn't an essential recording from which to learn about the city's rich blues tradition, it contains a fairly interesting collection of songs that are about Memphis or were recorded by Memphis artists. The Memphis Jug Band checks in with "Memphis Shakedown," an old-fashioned street romp. Country-music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers reveals his considerable blues roots on "Memphis Yodel," while "Memphis Rag," by the Chickasaw Syncopators, illustrates the close ties blues had with jazz in the prewar period.
A better place to search out the roots of Memphis blues is on Memphis Country Blues, Vol. I, which documents the complex cross-pollination that routinely occurred among Memphis blues artists. This in-breeding gave the city a strong but shifting blues sound, rather than one that could be clearly distinguished from the Delta style or East Coast approaches.
Listen to what a far cry Memphis Minnie's sassy swagger on "Ain't No Use You Trying to Tell on Me (I Got Something on You)" is from the great
