Euday L. Bowman
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Euday Louis Bowman (November 9, 1887 in Fort Worth - May 26, 1949 in New York) was an American pianist and composer of ragtime and blues who represented the style of Texas Ragtime. He is chiefly remembered as the composer of Twelfth Street Rag, a rag from 1914 out of a series of Ragtimes that Bowman wrote in or after a period of working as pianist in the better bordellos of Kansas City. These tunes had been dedicated to the streets of 'Boss' Tom Pendergast's redlight district, the "Sixth Street Rag", the "Tenth Street Rag", the "Eleventh Street Rag" and the "Twelfth Street Rag".
In his teens and early twenties Bowman traveled around as pianist. During this period he lost one leg when he tried to hop a train. Bowman also had been an arranger for popular orchestras. He lived together with his sister, Miss Mary M. Bowman, and she wrote a part of the Twelfth Street Rag, which had been a huge success, it may be the most successful ragtime written ever, but Bowman had sold it for just 100 US-Dollars. Many years later he did regain the copyright, having had nothing of the royalties payments earned by the publisher through the many successful interpretations of that rag by artists like Louis Armstrong (1927), Bennie Moten (1927), Duke Ellington (1931), and last not least Pee Wee Hunt (1940). Other of his works had been Petticoat Lane Rag,Colorado Blues, Kansas City Blues, Fort Worth Blues, Tipperary Blues, Shamrock Rag, White Lily Dreams, and Old Glory On Its Way.
