The Hooking Cow Blues by Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis (1917)
CD 2, track 24
From 1917, here’s “The Hooking Cow Blues” by Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis. Douglas Williams wrote the music (and lyrics), and W. C. Handy added “Jazz & Blues” treatment to it and issued it from his own Pace & Handy publishing house. Let’s not forget that William Christopher Handy (1873-1958), the Father of the Blues, hailed from rural Florence, Alabama. Even as he became a prominent answer to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, there’s still a lot of “country boy” evident in this musical arrangement.
