Once a small boy who loved music saw a guitar in a store window. He saved his meager earnings for weeks and finally bought it. But his angry father called it a devil’s plaything. The father, a minister, told the boy to take the guitar back and trade it for a dictionary. Nothing the father could do kept the boy from his music. In time he would virtually originate a new style that would shape American musical styles for decades. He called it “blues” and wrote a song in that style about a woman in St. Louis. He was William Christopher Handy.

AOWM – November 16