An earlier post made reference to W.C. Handy and it reminded me of a question I've always wanted to ask of such a learned assemblage as this. On the Folkways "Lead Belly's Last Sessions" recordings LB is heard to say something like "...St. Louis Blues, oh yeah... we used to sing that when I was a boy... called it St. Louis Song... Wasn't til I got to New York I come to find out W.C. Handy was the man that wrote that song."

I've always wondered about that comment. Is he saying that "St. Louis Blues" was being sung in Louisiana before Handy could have written it? Or is he simply expressing the fact that Handy's song was so widely performed no one knew where it came from?

Thanks,

- Mark