{"id":517,"date":"2015-03-03T20:45:20","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T02:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=517"},"modified":"2015-03-18T15:31:08","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T20:31:08","slug":"517","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2015\/03\/03\/517\/","title":{"rendered":"St.Louis Blues- A Song Represents “Sexuality”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hollywood cinemas in mid-20th<\/sup> century would use blues songs as a means to articulate racial instability in the characterization of women who represented problems in terms of their sexuality, their morality, and their (lower) class status.<\/p>\n

The song St.Louis Blues would be an example.<\/p>\n

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Composed by W. C. Handy in 1914, St. Louis Blues<\/em> was first featured in black vaudeville circa 1916 by Charles Anderson. On the basis of the song’s popularity, Handy has been called “The Father of the Blues”.<\/p>\n

The song begins with a woman’s lament for the end of the day: “I hate to see de evenin’ sun go down.” Her man has left her for another woman who had “store-bought hair” and became a temptation too great for him to ignore. Composed in G major, St. Louis Blues is a 12-bar blues that combine ragtime syncopation with \u201ca real melody in the spiritual tradition\u201d. Handy also addressed that features from tango music was also figured in the introduction as well as the middle strain. In the famous Marion Harris version, the tango motif was played by violins, with bassoon\u2019s humorous staccato, creating the image of a lovesick woman, full of lovelorn sadness but still has the longing for life.<\/p>\n