W.C. Handy

William Christopher Handy was a trained bandleader who heard the folk blues of the Mississippi Delta and began writing it down and publishing it. His pieces Memphis Blues and St. Louis Blues, from the 1910s, helped carry the blues from local tradition into printed sheet music and the wider popular market. As a Black composer and publisher he built a business in an industry that gave Black artists little control, and he became known as the Father of the Blues.