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Posted Friday, March 18, 2022<\/p>\n
By Matt Chaney, for chaneysblog.com<\/p>\n
\u00a9Copyright 2022 for historical arrangement and original content by Matthew Chaney, Four Walls Publishing<\/p>\n
\u201cThe blues\u201d was breaking out, music purely conceived of the American South. Blues pickers sang about sorrow and elation in the delta, and vice, violence. From Memphis joints on Beale Street, \u201cthere came the sound of banjos, of automatic pianos, and of the weary blues.\u201d Machine politics inspired music at Memphis, dating to the prison chain of deputy Joe Turney, the ballad of Joe Turner<\/em>.<\/p>\n Edward H. Crump campaigned for Memphis mayor in the 1909 election. A police commissioner, Crump ran on the reform platform, promising to eliminate gambling and liquor sales to square with dry laws of Tennessee. The red-headed Crump, 34, blamed crooked cops and officials for debauchery. He was a native of Mississippi, son of a Confederate, a hard-working, successful merchant, and a crafty politician.<\/p>\n Crump upstaged the police and sitting mayor, gathering his own deputy posse to raid \u201cNegro dives\u201d from Memphis south into Mississippi. Newsmen went along, recording scores of arrests, and Crump enjoyed good press. The Commercial Appeal<\/em> hailed him as \u201cpathfinder\u201d for local law enforcement. \u201cHe has done a good service for the city, and members of the legislative council applaud him.\u201d<\/p>\n Memphis was \u201cwide open,\u201d recalled Luke Kingsley, former jug musician and bartender at the Monarch Saloon on Beale. \u201cYou had to check your knife and gun at the front door before you could get in.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI could remember counting 14 opium dens in town. Drugstores made a fortune selling nothing but opium. Whorehouses were all over town. The going rate was 50 cents. They were thought of as being just as legitimate as grocery stores. And the only kind of policemen you had were down-and-outers.\u201d<\/p>\n In political ads and rhetoric, Crump made examples of two Memphis criminals: black saloonist Hammitt Ashford and white dive-keeper Bill Latura. Crump branded them thug cronies of the mayor\u2019s office, immune from prosecution in exchange for their delivering black votes, by whatever means. Afro-Americans constituted the rising voting bloc of Memphis and western Tennessee, harnessed by politicians through dangerous associates, black and white. Election fraud was a delta staple and simple for Ashford and Latura, reputed racketeers and killers who were bitter enemies on Beale.<\/p>\n Beale Street stood urbanized by the 20th century, from the 1845 muddy lane named for a cotton dealer. On east end of the avenue, residential development hemmed around old antebellum mansions, estates dwindling for parcels sold. Back west of the Beale intersection with DeSoto, center of modern action, former stately homes were boardinghouses. Beale\u2019s large commercial buildings clustered near Main Street, down to the riverfront.<\/p>\n A newsman took in Beale on a Saturday night, strolling eastward from Main. \u201cThe street itself, the peculiar mixed style of its architecture, its crooked topography, and the curious jumble it presents of pretentious buildings looking down in lofty contempt upon the mean shanties that surround them, these things alone are worth the visit,\u201d he reported. \u201cBut the life of the street itself, the cosmopolitan character of its inhabitants, the dense mass of humanity that bars the progress of pedestrians on its sidewalks, the multiplex character of the shops that line the populous thoroughfare, the indescribable variety of goods that fill the shelves of the shops\u2014all these present points of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPass by the cheap [whiskey] barrelhouse, where a small placard labeled \u2018Drinks 5 cents\u2019 describes the character of the commodities sold within.\u201d<\/p>\n Beale Street was “Negro America,” declared George Washington Lee, resident writer. \u201cThere are many other streets upon which the Negro lives and moves, but only one Beale Street\u2026 Adventurers, drawn to it by some hidden attraction, wander up and down this old avenue of gray buildings where golden balls above pawnshops glisten in the sun; where Jewish vendors stretch their racks of clothing across the store fronts, and glib-tongued barkers call to passersby to come in and view the bargains; where laughter and song ring out from the cafes and dance halls, and electric pianos join with the traffic noise to create a sound triumphant.\u201d<\/p>\n At nightfall on Beale, electric lights cast colorful hues, \u201cred, pink and yellow\u201d on storefronts aglow. A writer met \u201cthrongs of people on the sidewalks\u201d at sundown one holiday. \u201cThe colored folks were out in force [with] broad grins and boisterous laughter, with oft recurring \u2018snorts\u2019 taken at barrelhouses\u2026 everywhere the utmost good humor prevailed.\u201d<\/p>\n But some folks frowned passing Hammitt Ashford\u2019s saloon, 352 Beale, for its open doors and windows, wall paintings of nudes blaring visible outside, among elements. The joint sat at northwest corner of the raucous DeSoto intersection, with gamblers, drug dealers and prostitutes cavorting day and night. Pimps, or \u201cmashers,\u201d sold mere kids, such as the 17-year-old dead of her botched abortion in Ashford\u2019s home. Ashford distributed a masher business card, \u201cbearing his picture and offensive language,\u201d remarked the Commercial Appeal<\/em>. A woman notified the mayor, alleging \u201cshe has suffered at the hands of the notorious Negro\u2026 Ashford is enticing young girls into his place and ruining them.\u201d<\/p>\n Hammitt Ashford\u2019s publicized assaults and victim complaints demonstrated his brutality against females for a decade in Memphis, yet he avoided prison time. Ashford also committed cowardly attacks on males, cutting and shooting them in ambush. The “payback” assassination of Fatty Grimes was legend, occurring at the front door of Ashford’s dive, with the saloonist one of four accused gunmen acquitted of murder charges.<\/p>\n Jim \u201cBad Eye\u201d Musgrove fought a friend of Ashford in Robert Church\u2019s saloon, 324 Beale. Ashford and his hyenas jumped in, knifing Musgrove viciously, leaving entrails \u201cprotruding from several abdominal wounds.\u201d Musgrove survived but others did\u00a0 not, tangling with Ashford crews. George \u201cCousin Hog\u201d Flynn, gambler and bouncer, shot Ashford in M.L. Clay\u2019s saloon, 351 Beale. While Hammitt recovered Cousin Hog busied himself on DeSoto Street, where he stabbed a man to death. Back on Beale he chased Clay with gunshots, and Cousin Hog probably sensed fate at hand. An assassin appeared at his door beside the Monarch and shot him dead.<\/p>\n \u201cWild Bill\u201d Latura was worse than Ashford. A serial killer, Latura\u2019s carnage began at his family\u2019s Italian grocery and barroom in 1902. A drunk wielded a knife and Latura beat him to death with a baseball bat. Latura ran Negro gambling houses and frequented brothels, acquiring girlfriends and racist grudges. Ashford thrashed a black mistress of Latura, cracking her with a buggy whip. Latura, enraged, shot the woman in an argument and afterward targeted black males, numerous incidents. He struck one man with a car and shot at others, wounding a porter in the Dixie Saloon on South Third, surprising M.L. Clay at his joint on Beale. Clay dodged bullets and fired back. Beat cops were terrified of Latura, a crazed \u201cNegro Hater,\u201d everyone said, who sought a showdown with Hammitt Ashford.<\/p>\n On a December night in 1908, Bill Latura strode into Ashford\u2019s place on Beale, looking for the dive-keeper. Learning Ashford wasn\u2019t present, Latura brandished an automatic pistol and strafed blacks around a pool table. Four males died and a female was hit, shielding her fallen man. At trial doctors testified Latura was insane, a delusional paranoiac, and a white jury astonished the public, dismissing quadruple murder charges. Critics objected, alleging political protection for Latura, 28, a cousin of the sheriff. Predictably, a judge ordered Latura released from mental care after one year, and he continued to intimidate cops, court witnesses, juries, newsmen and rivals. Roaming as the most feared man in Memphis, Latura would kill again.<\/p>\n For corrupt officials, Ashford and Latura, Democrat E.H. Crump made political hay in 1909, ripping them all on campaign. Crump won the mayoral election, edging Joseph John Williams by 79 votes. Afro-Americans favored Williams, who topped voting precincts along Beale, but Crump \u201creform\u201d carried the white bloc and enough blacks. Crump\u2019s victory set in motion his political machine to become infamous above predecessors. But a larger mark of the Memphis time swept America\u2014milestone music by W.C. Handy, bandleader and composer.<\/p>\n Handy, three years in the city with his family, had clawed to the top of black bandsmen, rivaled only by Charles Bynum. Handy\u2019s dance band was a headliner at Church\u2019s Park on Beale, Dixie Park on the Southside, and on excursion steamers like the Pattona<\/em> and White Light<\/em>. During the last week of October 1909, Handy and his players worked both sides of the political aisle, first welcoming Republican President William Howard Taft to Memphis, belting their patriotic tunes from Steamer Kate Adams<\/em>.<\/p>\n Handy also contracted with local Democrats for Crump. Jim Mulcahy, saloon owner and Crump operative, hired the band for campaign music. Mulcahy wanted a Crump theme song but Handy wasn\u2019t interested in covering familiar melody, pop or otherwise. \u201cHot-cha music was the stuff we needed, and it had to be mellow,\u201d wrote Handy. \u201cWhere was it to be found? Certainly not in any existing files. I closed my eyes and tried to dream it.\u201d<\/p>\n Handy considered instrumentals and lyrical snatches \u201chalf-moaned, half-spoken,\u201d from his experience. He imagined Spanish tango rhythm, Italian crescendo, Hawaiian guitar and country picking\u2014disparate entries coming melodious together, now in mind. He heard again a black pianist in Pee-Wee\u2019s, plunking melody \u201chaunting and thoroughly original.\u201d Handy remembered delta Mississippi, waiting on a train, when the black guitarist wailed and pressed knife blade to strings. \u201cI could hear what I wanted. It was a weird melody in much the same mood as the one that had been strummed on the guitar at Tutwiler.\u201d<\/p>\n Handy composed a campaign instrumental, Mister Crump<\/em>, writing on the cigar stand in Pee-Wee\u2019s. He assembled players for a street band, aiming to sway black votes from Republican to Democrat. The ensemble was Handy on trumpet; brothers Paul and Ed Wyer on violin, and possibly Jim Turner; Archie Walls, bass violin; George Higgins, guitar; Bob Young, clarinet; James Osborne, saxophone; and George Williams, trombone.<\/p>\n \u201cThey put us in a two-horse wagon and hauled us to Main and Madison,\u201d Young told the Commercial-Appeal<\/em> decades later, for this account: The band played the song, with its eerie blues rhythm\u2026 and pretty soon, says \u2018Uncle Bob,\u2019 everybody on the street corner was dancing\u2014they just couldn\u2019t resist the urge that the odd melody seemed to give them<\/em>. Young recalled: \u201cProfessor Handy, as leader, was bearing down on his trumpet so hard that he almost made it smoke.\u201d<\/p>\n Handy designed music breaks for solos, and two players got creative: Young improvised a flurry on clarinet, and Paul Wyer finished memorably on violin. Wyer \u201cwent wild,\u201d producing \u201csomething new and unheard-of,\u201d reviewed Abbe Niles in the book edited by Handy, Blues: An Anthology<\/em>. Wyer \u201cdeviated from his score and put in some licks on his own account; he licentiously patted his feet.\u201d Niles noted that Handy \u201clearned something from this; from then on his musicians had carte blanche in the breaks of his blues, of which they, and soon other Negro bands, made use with gusto. Such things cannot be hid under a bushel, and it was not long before whites were doing the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe effect was electrical wherever heard,\u201d Handy wrote for New York Age<\/em>. \u201cWhen we played, no matter where, the people could not refrain from dancing. They danced in parks, halls, stores, on sidewalks, streetcars\u2014anywhere. I shall never forget the night we played this for a colored dance as a tryout. We had played only a few measures when a shout went up that thrilled me.\u201d<\/p>\n Recollections conflicted over whether words were initially part of the song. Handy and Young thought so, decades later, maintaining that \u201cMister Crump\u201d was mentioned from outset. But evidence indicates the ditty remained an instrumental through end of 1909. Ed Crump later insisted his name wasn\u2019t used until 1910, when Handy visited to ask permission, first time they met, for a song titled \u201cMister Crump Blues.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless, Mister Crump<\/em> was a three-line blues number in 1911, for the mayor\u2019s reelection. E.H. Crump had lost Beale precincts in his first mayoral drive, but he swept the city this time, trouncing J.J. Williams.\u00a0 Eyesight, meanwhile, confirmed Crump \u201creform\u201d meant nothing along the packed streets of Beale and Gayoso, DeSoto and Hernando, prime Afro districts.<\/p>\n Gambling and alcohol still reigned and dive owners paid poll tax on behalf of black voters, bundling thousands for Crump. Hammitt Ashford left Memphis for North Little Rock then Pine Bluff, Ark., still a bootlegger and pimp committing assaults, accused of pummeling two females with a baseball bat, among reports. Bill Latura remained on Memphis streets, having switched his allegiance to the Crump Machine, though changing in no other way.<\/p>\n The lyrics of Mister Crump<\/em> were satirical, belying reality, purporting he banished hustlers and revelers, \u201ceasy\u00a0 \u00a0riders.\u201d Phrasing was borrowed from the folk song Mama don\u2019t \u2019low no pickin\u2019 and singin\u2019 round here<\/em>. Memphis musicians and audiences contributed wry words, chanting merrily over instrumentals:<\/p>\n Mister Crump don\u2019t \u2019low\u2026 no easy-riders round here.<\/em><\/p>\n Mister Crump don\u2019t \u2019low\u2026 no easy-riders round here;<\/em><\/p>\n Well, I don\u2019t care what Mister Crump don\u2019t \u2019low.<\/em><\/p>\n We gonna barrel-house any-how.<\/em><\/p>\n Mister Crump don\u2019t \u2019low, and ain\u2019t gonna have it here.<\/em><\/p>\n Well, Mister Crum can go… and get his-self some air.<\/em><\/p>\n Handy self-published an instrumental version in 1912, renaming the song Memphis Blues<\/em>, and distributed more than a thousand copies, many hand-written. Black vaudeville shows demanded Memphis Blues<\/em>, including Salem Tutt Whitney\u2019s Southern Smart Set, which employed the lyrics for singers like Mamie Smith and Goldie Chappelle. Unfortunately a store pianist bamboozled Handy, catching the musician strapped for cash. Theron C. Bennett bought song rights for $50, securing himself a small musical fortune and enduring notoriety as a con artist.<\/p>\n Composer W.C. Handy won adoration of the planet, applause everlasting, as a founder of American music.<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u2018Memphis Blues\u2019 is known all over this country and its composer is almost as well known,\u201d observed the Nashville Tennessean<\/em> in 1916. \u201cDown in Memphis town Handy reigns almost supreme at most of the dances, his music being the one big boast that Memphians have.\u201d G.W. Lee, on Beale Street, said his friend Will Handy \u201cchanged the entire tempo of American music.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1930 Clifford McGuinness, Pittsburgh Courier<\/em>, credited Handy for the \u201cfirst real blues\u201d published. \u201cAfter the success of the \u2018Memphis Blues,\u2019 which ushered in the present era of jazz, both races recognized his genius and lent encouragement.\u201d Elsewhere in the Negro press, poet Langston Hughes lauded Handy, 1954, writing for New York Age<\/em>: \u201cGiven new vitality just before the First World War by the folk blues and the personal creations of W.C. Handy in blues form, Negro syncopation became the popular music of America.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHandy was the father of it all; he was the beginning,\u201d said Papa John Gordy, Dixieland jazzman, following the composer\u2019s death in 1958. \u201cI never met him, never had the chance. I never had to. What he did has been in my blood all the time I\u2019ve played.\u201d<\/p>\n Merl Eppse of Nashville, expert in African-American history, had met Handy on occasion. \u201cHe captured something great and left it behind. We\u2019re lucky, I think. I always liked him as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n O.V. Wright, singer of R&B and gospel, cited Handy for the chart-busting \u201cMemphis Sound\u201d of Stax Records in 1968. \u201cSome people call it \u2018soul,\u2019 but it\u2019s only the old blues. I think it\u2019s the old Handy sound passed down to a new generation.\u201d<\/p>\n Judy Peiser, 1990, Center for Southern Folklore, said \u201ceventually someone would have written the blues, because it was a music of the people. The reason Handy is so important is that he was a classically trained musician. Not only could he conceive and perform the music, but he could write it down.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHandy has become a controversial figure, his mythical title father of the blues<\/em> much disputed,\u201d author Preston Lauterbach stated in 2015. \u201cBut his true claim to fame was never to have invented blues music outright but to have crossed the music over from Beale Street to Main Street, from colored honky-tonks to mainstream America.\u201d<\/p>\n Matt Chaney is compiling companion books on Southern music, tentatively titled\u00a0<\/em>River Shows, Jazz, Blues and Country Music\u00a0and, the sequel,\u00a0<\/em>Rockabillies in the Missouri Delta. See the page\u00a0<\/em>Stories from River Music to Rock in the Northern Delta<\/a>. For more information, including\u00a0<\/em>Chaney\u2019s previous books, visit\u00a0<\/em>www.fourwallspublishing.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Email:<\/em>\u00a0mattchaney@fourwallspublishing.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n References<\/strong><\/p>\n 4th<\/sup>\u2014July\u20144th<\/sup>. (1905, July 2). [Advertisement.] Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 7.<\/p>\n Anonymous Advertisement. (1909, Oct. 31). [Advertisement.] Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 3.<\/p>\n Ante-Christmas Fight. (1896, Dec. 24). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 2.<\/p>\n Argenta. (1912, Dec. 9). Arkansas Gazette<\/em>, Little Rock AR, p. 10.<\/p>\n Argenta Notes. (1913, Jan. 1). Arkansas Democrat<\/em>, Little Rock AR, p. 7.<\/p>\n Aristocratic Beale Avenue Home Becomes Negro Community Center. (1935, March 11). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 3.<\/p>\n Armour, R.B. (1895, Feb. 18). Letter list. Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 8.<\/p>\n As To Williams And Dive Vote. (1909, Nov. 2). Memphis Commercial Appeal <\/em>TN, p. 5.<\/p>\n Ashford Has A Card. (1909, Dec. 10). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 5.<\/p>\n Ashford On Rampage. (1915, Nov. 11). Pine Bluff Graphic<\/em> AR, p. 7.<\/p>\n Ashford Released. (1903, Aug. 29). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 6.<\/p>\n Banerji, R. (2012, Dec. 30). WC Handy\u2019s Memphis Blues: The song of 1912. BBC World Service. [Online] https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/magazine-20769518.<\/p>\n Beale Ave. Blossoms. (1914, July 15). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 6.<\/p>\n Beale Street Scenes. (1888, Aug. 12). Memphis Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 2.<\/p>\n Beer Demand Keeps Breweries On Jump. (1933, July 14). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 14.<\/p>\n Big Craps Game Flushed. (1908, Dec. 6). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 5.<\/p>\n Bill Latura Has Become New Man. (1910, June 19). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 8.<\/p>\n Bill Latura Kills 3 Men. (1908, Dec. 11). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, pp. 1, 10.<\/p>\n Bill Latura Not Guilty. (1909, Feb. 13). Batesville Guard<\/em> AR, p. 2.<\/p>\n Blood Money Is Squeezed. (1907, Oct. 20). Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em> TN, p. 4.<\/p>\n Bootlegging Cases Are Disposed Of. (1914, Feb. 8). Pine Bluff Graphic<\/em> AR, p. 2.<\/p>\n Brand, M., & Golding, B. (2005, Feb. 15). Profile: Recollections of W.C. Handy<\/em>. National Public Radio: Washington DC. [Online] https:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=4500133.<\/p>\n Cerulli, D. (1958, April 4). W.C. Handy\u2019s story of the blues. Down Beat Magazine<\/em>, 25 (7), pp. 15-16, 42.<\/p>\n Chaney, M. (2022, Jan. 12). Beale Street mystery solved? 1892 report emerges on namesake<\/a>. chaneysblog.com. [Online] http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/?p=4131.<\/p>\n