![Tell Me Pretty Maiden (1899) by Leslie Stuart [CORNET SOLO by Emil Keneke, 1901] @GLepRagtimeChronicle](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iXCg4yqoBtM/sddefault.jpg)
Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Emil Keneke, pioneer cornet soloist recording artist, plays the smash hit song from the 1899 musical, 'Florodora', later to become the #1 hit song of 1902.
Harry Macdonough & Grace Spencer 1902 Version:
youtu.be/uChBk8_VgQs?si=QlB4-DWxWvqobCKJ
Emil Keneke, pioneer cornet soloist recording artist, plays the smash hit song from the 1899 musical, 'Florodora', later to become the #1 hit song of 1902.
Harry Macdonough & Grace Spencer 1902 Version:
youtu.be/uChBk8_VgQs?si=QlB4-DWxWvqobCKJ
![Tell Me Pretty Maiden (1899) by Leslie Stuart [CORNET SOLO by Emil Keneke, 1901]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iXCg4yqoBtM/mqdefault.jpg "Tell Me Pretty Maiden (1899) by Leslie Stuart [CORNET SOLO by Emil Keneke, 1901]
Emil Keneke, pioneer cornet soloist recording artist, plays the smash hit song from the 1899 musical, Florodora, later to become the #1 hit song of 1902.
Harry Macdonough & Grace Spencer 1902 Version:
https://youtu.be/uChBk8_VgQs?si=QlB4-DWxWvqobCKJ")
![Aframerican Hymn (1916) by W. C. Handy [Sung by Handys Sacred Singers, 1929]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/l3dSShHM1rY/mqdefault.jpg "Aframerican Hymn (1916) by W. C. Handy [Sung by Handys Sacred Singers, 1929]
A departure from his usual blues-centric output, here is an obscure hymn from the Father of the Blues. In 1919, it was dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in North America.
#blues #78rpm #blackhistory
They didnt call him Father of the Blues for nothing. William Christopher Handys contributions to the blues genre singlehandedly crafted it into what it is today. His Memphis Blues, Saint Louis Blues, Beale Street Blues, Ole Miss Rag, and Yellow Dog Rag are jazz standards and in the case of St. Louis, it has come to name a National Hockey League team and became the second most popular song of the first half of the 20th century (the first being White Christmas).
Handys music also has sentimental value for myself. When I was 12 years old, the coronavirus syndemic broke out and isolated me to the void of online schooling for 3 months. I made ragtime playlists to pass the time, and one of the composers I discovered was Handy. As my first exposure to 12 bar blues, I instantly found relatability- the dismal sympathy was common at the time.
Further information on the beginning of the slave trade in North America in 1619, courtesy of Colonial National Historical Park: https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/african-americans-at-jamestown.htm
More W. C. Handy:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLMkuz4vEFoOO4o3aIp_47P3ok4f61FEW&si sr8JqfjELd4ueWz")
