Saint Louis Blues is a popular American jazz standard composed by W. C. Handy in 1914 and published that September. It tells a story of longing inspired by a woman Handy met in St. Louis, and he recalled hearing the tune in 1892 while aiming to fuse ragtime energy with a melodic, spiritual feel. The song helped blues cross into pop, and it has been recorded by many stars, including Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong in 1925, a recording released April 10, 1925 after being cut January 14, 1925; the track runs 2 minutes 46 seconds and was issued on Columbia. The form blends twelve-bar blues with a 16-bar habanera bridge, a Spanish-tinged touch Handy described as a tango. Notable milestones include Handy and his Memphis Blues Band’s 1922 version preserved in the National Recording Registry in 2023, and later renditions such as Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder on Gershwin's World (1998).
