The Father of the Blues

Before I'd be a slave, I'll be b-b-b-go. Destination Freedom The Chicago Defender and Station WMAQ bring you Destination Freedom.

A radio series dramatizing the great democratic traditions of the Negro people. Interwoven in the pageant of history, and a part of America's own Destination Freedom. Today, Destination Freedom tells the story of composer W.C. Handy in a special chapter entitled The Father of the Blues.

It was walking round my bed this morning. It was walking round my bed. It went into breakfast and the blues. Nobody knows when the blues, nobody knows where the songs began.

Some played with Winadim and Eve learned how to breathe. Some played with On the Day and Assassin's Bullet Kill Old Aid. Some say on that day the blues woke up from an empty bed in Memphis.

Walked the streets of Mobile like a natural man. Haunted the barrooms in Birmingham, laughed and cursed in the Jim Crow court. And slipped unnoticed inside a guitar player who worked on a chain gang crew and a gravel pit by a railroad track in Alabama.

This is the story of the water boy who noticed the blues. What a boy! Well, Sally, what a boy! What a boy! What a boy! Get the letter, you old feet boy! Who wants water?

Blue's caught you first, passing up to him. You mean Blue's lemon? A guitar man? He working here now? That's right, Mr. Water Boy. Blue's lemon is heading the gang. The fellow with the nice new chains on his ankles.

Now Lord, why'd you make this kid so innocent? Why, Lord? Are you Mr. Lemon? You want a water? You took your test. I didn't know what you was calling it. I'm glad you're here. I've never seen you.