St Louis Blues

Welcome back to Tea with Liya! Today, I'm playing a song called "St. Louis Blues." Composed by W. C. Handy in 1914, this was one of the first blues songs to succeed in the realm of popular music. That makes it a bit different from the blues I posted last week. I hope you like listening to it!


Listen to the song here
(Can't see an audio player? It might not work if you're viewing this in an email client. If you are on teawithliya.blogspot.ca, you may need to try a different browser.)



How do you think you should pronounce Louis? Would you say it as if the "s" wasn't there, or would you say it like "Lewis?" Perhaps if you went to St. Louis, Missouri, you'd be able to find out.

That's where W. C. Handy was when he came up with the inspiration for this song. (Now you know why it's called St. Louis Blues.) Although he classified it as a blues, he also added a rhythm from another style of music to it, making it sound more like a ragtime piece.

You can get inspiration in a lot of different ways. In Handy's case, he was passing someone on a road in St. Louis. He took some of the things she said and used them in the lyrics to his song. His piece has been inspiration for other things as well. In fact, if you look up "St Louis Blues," you'll actually find a hockey team in Missouri that's named after the song. It's become more popular than the song itself.

That might even happen with different ways to pronounce Louis. If the name originated in a certain language, it could be passed to another one that's more popular, and then it'll be spelled or pronounced differently. Then the original name wouldn't be as popular anymore.

Maybe you've actually gone to St. Louis, Missouri. Or maybe you've heard about the team that is based there. But now, you've gotten a chance to listen to a song that's connected to both of them.

That's why it's always a good idea to...

...keep filling your teacup with music!
~Liya