Antonio Maggio .... was a fascinating man best known as an early creator of blues music. His song I got the blues, which became a hit in New Orleans in 1908, was the first published 12-bar blues with the word blues in the title. The dramatic events of his life, besides showing the context of his musical imagination, illustrate the unique process of becoming a New Orleans resident during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Born in Cefalu, Sicily in 1876, Maggio came to the city as a teenager, and like his father and his brothers, he was a consummate musician and multi-instrumentalist.
Though he worked at his brother’s barbershop, he was said to spend more time playing music in the streets, and was a contemporary of other notable New Orleans music pioneers