Where the Southern crosses the Dog

Thinking a lot about jazz music.  Actually, I think about jazz music a lot of the time.  I've always loved jazz.  As a kid, I'd go to the tiny town library and borrow jazz CDs, record them onto tapes and relisten to them for hours.  Then, I'd go to the slightly-larger town-next-door's library and find books about early jazz and borros some of their CDs.  I appreciate all forms, but I was drawn to early mainstream and New Orleans style.  Dixieland, Big Band era, ragtime.  I've recently picked up a book about the origins of New Orleans jazz. It's not as straighforward as you'd think.

I did an independant study honor's project last year.  The focus was the impact and influence of society on popular music between 1890 and 1930.  A lot happened in 40 years.  In New Orleans, immigrants were playing a big role in the city by establishing new ideas and business ventures.  Creoles were beginning to lose the small degree of status that they had and poor white people (basically, people who didn't own plantations) were beginning to create a strong backlash against the recently freed Black population (who, themselves, were still being denied many basic rights and freedoms).

For the project, I read some of W. C. Handy's autobiography.  Wonderful book, by the way.  In it, Handy describes his first encounter with the blues (which in the end had an impact on jazz).  He tells a great story of the time he was waiting for a train in a Mississippi Delta station.  He encounters a man playing a guitar, singing a rough, rhythmic song about where the "Southern crosses the Dog."  The "Southern" and the "Dog" that the man was referring to were nicknames given to railroad lines that criss-crossed through the Delta region. 

This reminds me of some other great crossroad stories, but I'll save them for later.  :)

Handy was so impressed with this music that he wanted to recreate it.  Handy was the leader of a band who played marches and dance music.  At first, Handy was reluctant to play the new music he'd heard, bu then, one night, while playing a job with his band, he was approached by someone in the crowd to play some "savage" music.  They were referring to the rough, raw sound that early bluesmen played.  Unable to comply (Handy's men weren't trained for that kind of music, and it's interesting to note that they were only asked to play that kind of music because they were all black men), they initially played a "rousing" ragtime number, but were then asked if they wouldn't mind taking a break, while a couple of other musicians came up to play. 

To Handy, the new musicians on stage didn't look like musicians.  But he was still being paid, and his men got a break, so, why not?  The two new men stomped and wailed and the audience went mad.  "Coins rained down at their feet", writes Handy.  He was impressed.

Handy went on to write the first published "blues" song.  "St. Louis Blues" was Handy's attempt at blues music.  It isn't a strict blues, actually passing through several dance styles.  History ensues!