W. C. Handy hears a guitarist at Tutwiler station

Assembled from 38 blocks · 1 evidence · 26 related

1. Story
2. Waiting for a train at Tutwiler, Mississippi, the bandleader W. C. Handy hears a man press a knife against the strings of a guitar and sing "Goin' where the Southern cross' the Dog" — a line naming a railway junction. Handy recorded the encounter in his 1941 autobiography, nearly four decades later, and it is the most cited early description of blues performance. It is a recollection, not a recording; what it documents is the moment a literate professional musician first found the practice worth writing down.
3. Knowledge
4. Guitar
5. The Mississippi Delta
6. Blues
7. W. C. Handy
8. W. C. Handy hears a guitarist at Tutwiler station
9. Connections
10. W. C. Handy
11. W. C. Handy
12. Blues
13. The Mississippi Delta
14. Guitar
15. W. C. Handy hears a guitarist at Tutwiler station
16. W. C. Handy hears a guitarist at Tutwiler station
17. Colonial prohibition of drumming
18. The Mississippi Delta
19. Jazz
20. Guitar
21. The Great Migration
22. Samba
23. Race records
24. W. C. Handy hears a guitarist at Tutwiler station
25. The Great Migration
26. Mamie Smith records "Crazy Blues"
27. Muddy Waters is recorded at Stovall Farm
28. Blues
29. W. C. Handy hears a guitarist at Tutwiler station
30. The Great Migration
31. Muddy Waters is recorded at Stovall Farm
32. European lute
33. Blues
34. Highlife
35. W. C. Handy hears a guitarist at Tutwiler station
36. The Kumasi Trio record in London
37. Evidence
38. Handy, waiting at Tutwiler station circa 1903, heard a man play slide guitar with a knife and sing "Goin' where the Southern cross' the Dog"; he led an orchestra in Clarksdale from 1903 to 1905 and recounted the encounter in his 1941 autobiography Father of the Blues. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to the Blues Trail marker text; the marker page was not opened, and the quoted autobiography passage is reproduced at second hand.