Euday L. Bowman

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Euday Louis Bowman (born 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 the successful Twelfth Street Rag, a rag from 1914 out of a series of ragtimes that Bowman wrote during or after a period in which he worked as a pianist in some of the better bordellos of Kansas City. These tunes -- "Sixth Street Rag", "Tenth Street Rag", "Eleventh Street Rag" and "Twelfth Street Rag" -- were named after streets of "Boss" Tom Pendergast's redlight district.

[edit] Biography

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 was also an arranger for popular orchestras. He lived together with his sister, Miss Mary M. Bowman, who wrote a part of Twelfth Street Rag. Bowman sold the copyright to the song for just $100. Many years later he regained the copyright, having lost out on the royalties 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 Pee Wee Hunt (1940). Other works of his include Petticoat Lane Rag,Colorado Blues, Kansas City Blues, Fort Worth Blues, Tipperary Blues, Shamrock Rag, White Lily Dreams, and Old Glory On Its Way.