Trivia

He became blind after an accidental fall from a subway platform in 1943.

Pictured on a 6¢ US commemorative postage stamp issued in his honor, 17 May 1969.

Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1981.

Is mentioned by name in the song "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn on his self-titled album (1991).

Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

W. C. Handy Music Festival is held annually in Florence, Alabama. Another W.C. Handy Music Festival is held annually in Henderson, Kentucky in June.

He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983.

Handy used elements of folk music in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from various performers.

W. C. Handy was an American composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues.

On March 28, 1958, Handy died of bronchial pneumonia. Over 25,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church. Over 150,000 people gathered in the streets near the church to pay their respects.

After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1954 when he was 80. His bride was his secretary Irma Louise Logan, who he frequently said had become his eyes.

In 1926 Handy wrote Blues: An Anthology-Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs. It is an early attempt to record, analyze, and describe the blues as an integral part of the South and the history of the United States.

One of many musicians who played the distinctively American blues music, Handy did not create the blues genre but was one of the first to publish music in the blues form, thereby taking the blues from a regional music style (Delta blues) with a limited audience to a new level of popularity.

In 1955, he had a stroke, and he began to use a wheelchair.

In a 1938 radio episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not! Handy was described as "the father of jazz as well as the blues.".

Handy's music does not always follow the classic 12-bar pattern, often having 8- or 16-bar bridges between 12-bar verses.

Handy also took influence from the square dances held by Mississippi blacks, which typically had music in the G major key. In particular, he picked the same key for his 1914 hit, "Saint Louis Blues".

Following publication of his autobiography, Handy published a book on African-American musicians entitled "Unsung Americans Sing" (1944).

In 1926 Handy wrote and edited a work entitled Blues: An Anthology-Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs.