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Artist
Katharine Handy Lewis
9+ albums
blueswc handy s daughter
about
KATHARINE H. LEWIS, SINGER, THE DAUGHTER OF W.C. HANDY Katharine Handy Lewis, an early blues singer who was the first to sing the songs set down by her father, W.C. Handy - ''the Father of the Blues'' - died last Thursday at her home in the Bronx after a long illness. She was 80 years old. Her last public appearance, at Carnegie Hall in March 1981, recreated the historic concert of April 27, 1928, the first evening of black music presented in the bastion of white music. At the concert, Mrs. Lewis sang ''St. Louis Blues,'' one of the first blues songs ever published. Just before the concert, she talked about the early years of blues singing. ''I had the voice when I sang the blues in my youthful days,'' she said. ''I didn't gyrate to them. The blues are supposed to be serious, and I sang them as the master taught me.'' The master was her father. Of her rendition of ''St. Louis Blues,'' a music critic for The New York Times, John S. Wilson, said her voice ''still conveyed the contrast of the brooding loneliness of the early sections of the song and her rising anger at that 'St. Louis woman with her diamond rings.' '' As with many of the first blues singers, her roots were in the deep South. She was born on June 20, 1902, in Normal, Ala., the second of six children. In 1919, her family moved to 139th Street in Harlem, where black singers congregated to work with her and her father, and where the idea for the 1928 Carnegie Hall concert emerged. During the 1920's and 1930's, she s
top songs
1
Memphis Blues
1072Joe Turner
433St. Louis Blues
334Improvisations: Three Original Piano Solos: Blue Moods, Sex
335Chantez les bas
336Yellow Dog Blues
247Loveless Love
178Improvisations: Three Original Piano Solos: Blue Moods 2
169Improvisations: Three Original Piano Solos: Blue Moods 1
1210Memphis Blues (1912, sung by his daughter in 1958)
1albums
W. C. Handy Blues: As Sung by His Daughter Katharine Handy Lewis in Traditional Style
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W. C. Handy Blues
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W. C. Handy Blues (As Sung By His Daughter Katharine Handy Lewis In Traditional Style)
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I'm Going To Graceland
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W. C. Handy Blues: As Sung by His Daughter Katharine Handy L
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W.C. Handy blues sung by his daughter Katharine Handy Lewis in traditional style
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W. C. Handy Blues: As Sung by His Daughter Katharine Handy Lewis in Traditio
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W. C. Handy Blues - As Sung by His Daughter in Traditional Style
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Tormato (Deluxe Edition)