WC Handy Music Festival
Florence, Alabama

The ten-day long WC Handy Music Festival is held in Florence, Alabama during the last full week in July. The 2012 31st annual event will be held from July 20th thru July 29th.

What started as a few events held during a weekend has grown to feature approximately three hundred mostly musical events in parks, clubs, restaurants, churches, recreation centers, and other places throughout the Northwest region of Alabama known as the Shoals. There are events designed for the young, and the young at heart.

The Handy Festival is designed to honor the music that is and was created by musicians in this area, and to pay respect to the legacy of the Festival’s namesake, William Christopher “W.C.” Handy. Known to the world as the “Father of the Blues”, Handy was born in a simple log cabin in Florence, Alabama on Nov. 16, 1873, and lived in Florence until age nineteen. He was influenced both by sacred church music, then by the songs of workers along the docks, and was the first to capture the music of the Soul on paper. Handy composed the famous tunes “St. Louis Blues,” “Memphis Blues,” “Yellow Dog Blues,” and “Beale Street Blues”, and later formed Handy Brothers Music which is still operated today by his family in New York.

For a schedule of events please see: www.wchandymusicfestival.org