[78-L] St Louis Blues?

[RAY KILCOYNE]

From: "Taylor Bowie" 
>  I'm really surprised that the Prince 
> is the first record of the song...I'm not certain but I think it was 
> published two or three years before that.  Is it possible that record 
> companies didn't quickly catch on as to the merit of the thing?  But at the 
> same time I don't think the Prince must have sold all the well,  as I'd 
> never before seen it in 40+ years of poking through stacks and boxes of 78s.
>

We all have our doubts about Whitburn and Wikipedia, but for what it's worth, Whitburn lists ST. LOUIS BLUES by Prince as reaching #4 in popularity, charting on 5/13/16, which follows with the recording date of December 1915.

The Wikipedia article says it was published in September of 1914.  The year is confimed by David Ewen in his book, "American Popular Songs".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Blues_(song)

Ewen also says it was published by Handy's own company, but didn't start to catch on at first until he moved his company to NYC.
RayK