W.C. Handy
1921
Handy subtitled this one 'Careless Love,' connecting it to one of the oldest folk melodies in American music. Careless Love — the song, not the concept, though both are ancient — has been traced back to at least the 1850s and possibly earlier. It's a song about the kind of love that destroys you, the kind you pursue knowing it will end badly, the kind that feels like falling off a cliff in slow motion while admiring the view. Handy's version domesticates the folk song just enough to get it published while keeping the teeth.
The genius of Loveless Love is in the arrangement. Handy scores it for a small ensemble with a simplicity that lets the melody carry the emotional weight. The blues progression is understated — no pyrotechnics, no showing off — just a slow, dignified walk through heartbreak with stops at all the relevant stations: longing, regret, acceptance, and the quiet fury that comes after acceptance when you realize acceptance doesn't actually fix anything.
Handy was legally blind by the time this version gained widespread popularity. He'd lost his sight gradually through the 1930s and continued composing and conducting by memory and feel. Imagine writing about loveless love while losing the ability to see the face of the person you love. Handy's wife Louise stayed with him through the blindness and through the decades of fighting for royalties from publishers who assumed a blind Black man wouldn't or couldn't sue. She was wrong about the 'wouldn't.' Handy sued plenty.
Loveless Love was recorded by Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and dozens of other artists who recognized in Handy's arrangement a framework sturdy enough to support their own interpretations. That's the mark of a great standard — it survives translation. The folk original survives in Handy's version. Handy's version survives in Armstrong's. Armstrong's survives in yours, if you hum it in the shower. Each version is the same song and a different one. That's how music stays alive.
Recording: Ernest Hare (Edison, 1921). Public domain in the US (published 1921). Source: https://archive.org/details/78_loveless-love_ernest-hare-w-c-handy_gbia0527215b