Pee Wee's Saloon

The song worked out at this counter took Handy out of Memphis. His band moved to the city in 1909, and he wrote a campaign song, "Mr. Crump," for E. H. Crump's run for mayor, then reworked it as "Memphis Blues," published in 1912. He met Harry Pace that year, and their sheet music company made Handy's name. In 1917 came "Beale Street Blues," written as a farewell to the street, and that same year Handy moved his publishing business to New York City, to offices in the Gaiety Theatre building near Times Square.

What the plaque says

Pee Wee's Saloon Pee Wee's Saloon was the favorite meeting spot for Memphis musicians in the early 20th century. W.C. Handy used the cigar counter to write out copies of the Beale Street Blues for his band members. One of those songs, written for the 1909 political campaign was first named "Mr. Crump," for the Memphis mayor and political boss. Later with new lyrics it became famous as "The Memphis Blues."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Beale Street — steps away
  The street that became the center of Black Memphis after the Civil War, home to Church's Park, W. C. Handy, Ida B. Wells and the blues, now a National Historic Landmark district.
• National Civil Rights Museum — 0.5 mi
  The Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on April 4, 1968, kept as a museum of the civil rights movement from the nineteenth century to today.
• 1866 Memphis Massacre Marker at Army Park — 0.5 mi
  A privately funded NAACP marker in a small downtown park, placed in 2016, that names the May 1866 attack on Black South Memphis as a massacre.
• Sun Studio — 0.7 mi
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.

More markers nearby

• Ida B. Wells — steps away
• Rufus Thomas, Jr. — steps away
• Nat D. Williams — steps away
• Danny Thomas — steps away