Britannica Sources used in this answer

What did W.C. Handy hear at the Tutwiler, Mississippi, train station around 1903?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

B.B. King playing an electric guitar with an expressive face, wearing a plaid jacket, June 19, 1979. — Mississippi Delta blues Mississippi-born blues legend B.B. King, 1979.

Around 1903, W.C. Handy, the composer of "St. Louis Blues," encountered a man at a train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi, who was dressed in rags and singing while playing the guitar with a knife.1