W.C. Handy Birthplace — Florence, Alabama

William Christopher Handy was born on November 16, 1873, in a log cabin at 620 West College Street in Florence, Alabama — a site that is now a museum and one of the most significant addresses in the history of American music. Handy would go on to compose "St. Louis Blues," "Memphis Blues," "Beale Street Blues," and dozens of other works that codified the blues as a written musical form and introduced it to mainstream audiences. He is known as the Father of the Blues, though he was careful to describe himself as the blues's first publisher and populariser rather than its inventor — acknowledging the folk tradition he drew from.

Handy's breakthrough came after a night at the Tutwiler, Mississippi, train station around 1903, when he heard an itinerant musician playing slide guitar and singing about "where the Southern cross the Dog" — a Delta blues performance that struck him as the most haunting and original music he had ever heard. He began transcribing and arranging the blues, publishing "Memphis Blues" in 1912 and "St. Louis Blues" in 1914. These compositions — heard by millions through sheet music and early recordings — brought the blues to parlours, dance halls, and concert stages far beyond the Mississippi Delta.

The W.C. Handy Birthplace, Museum and Library at 620 West College Street in Florence is operated by the Alabama Historical Commission and is open to the public. The log cabin has been preserved and restored. An annual W.C. Handy Music Festival runs for ten days each summer in Florence and the surrounding Shoals area, celebrating the region's extraordinary musical heritage. Handy died in New York City on March 28, 1958.