W.C. Handy Music Fest in Alabama

(Above: The late W.C. Handy)

ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) has joined with three of Alabama's leading music organizations—The Music Preservation Society, The Muscle Shoals Music Association and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame—to present the W.C. Handy Music Festival/Songfest 2005, a weeklong event (July 22 - July 30) celebrating the musical accomplishments of northern Alabama.

Florence, Ala.—where the festival is being held—was the birthplace of W.C. Handy (1873-1958), revered worldwide as "the Father of the Blues," and composer of the enduring classic, "St. Louis Blues," recorded by everyone from Bessie Smith to Chet Atkins and Leonard Bernstein. Just across the river is Muscle Shoals, the legendary Alabama music center where countless memorable sides were committed to tape by artists like Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Etta James, Bobby Bland, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Joe Cocker and Willie Nelson, among many others.

The featured artists for this year's W.C. Handy Music Festival/Songfest include the Grammy Award-winning Commodores ("Brick House," "Three Times a Lady") and Eddie Floyd ("Knock on Wood"), pianist-composer Ellis Marsalis (New Orleans jazz legend and patriarch of the Marsalis family), and one-man-band and blues musician Richard Johnston.

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