 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2016) |
| "12th Street Rag" | |
|---|---|
 Original sheet music published in 1915 | |
| Composition by Euday Bowman | |
| Written | 1898 |
| Published | January 30, 1914 |
| Genre | Ragtime |
| Songwriter(s) | Euday Bowman |
Instrument: Piano, solo (in original form) | |
"Twelfth Street Rag" (alternatively "12th Street Rag") is a ragtime musical composition published by Euday L. Bowman in 1914. [1]
A friend of Euday Bowman known as "Raggedy Ed" declared his intention to open a pawn shop on 12th Street in Kansas City while the two were walking along it. Bowman is rumored to have said "If you get rich on those three balls, I'll write a piece on three notes to make myself rich." [2] [3]
It was more than 15 years after Bowman composed the song before he actually wrote the music down in manuscript form. He returned to Texas briefly and tried to sell the piece to a company in Dallas; but he only had an offer of ten dollars for it and was told it really was not worth publishing. Returning to Kansas City, he sold it to Jenkins Music Company in 1913. The Jenkins company felt Bowman's arrangement was far too difficult however, hiring C. E. Wheeler to simplify it. [4] With a big advertising push "12th Street Rag" began to sell better. In 1919, James S. Sumner added lyrics. The song was popular with early Kansas City bands and became a hit after Bennie Moten recorded it for RCA Victor in 1927, the same year Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven recorded it.
The piece was written in E-flat major [5] and follows an AABA form. [1]
Euday Bowman, the composer, recorded and published his own recording of the piece, on Bowman 11748. Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven recorded the song for Okeh Records in Chicago in May 1927. Krazy Kat and his orchestra perform the music in the 1930 cartoon The Bandmaster . A recording by Pee Wee Hunt [6] was the Billboard number-one single for 1948, selling more than three million copies. It was released as Capitol Records 15105 in May 1948. Donald Peers recorded the song in London on March 26, 1949. It was released by EMI on the His Master's Voice label as catalogue number B 9763. Other notable performers of the song include Roy Clark, Barney Kessel, and Jack Teagarden.
The song is perhaps best known in the US and UK as the theme to The Joe Franklin Show ; [7] the version most associated with the program was Big Tiny Little's 1959 recording from his album Honky Tonk Piano (Brunswick BL (7)54049).
A brief excerpt of the song can also be heard about 37 minutes into the 1996 film The English Patient .[ citation needed ]
The song is sampled in two "Weird Al" Yankovic polka medleys: "Hooked on Polkas" and "Polka Power!".[ citation needed ]
The melody of the song is heard in the Chuck E. Cheese 1999 film Chuck E. Cheese in the Galaxy 5000 , serving as the basis for the song, "The Galaxy's For You and Me". The same melody is played during the first scene in the soda shop.[ citation needed ]
Since 1999, a steel guitar version has been featured as background music on the US television cartoon series by Nickelodeon, SpongeBob SquarePants. [8]
The Rastrelli Cello Quartet recorded a version for four cellos in 2006, on the album Vol. 1 - Concerto Grosso A LA Russe.[ citation needed ]
In 2006, a Huell Howser episode of California's Gold began by Huell asking Fotoplayer operator Joe Rinaudo to "hit it Joe", following which Joe launched into a rendition of "Twelfth Street Rag". [9]
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin, James Scott, and Joseph Lamb. Ragtime pieces are typically composed for and performed on piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles.
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime", he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the quintessential rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls and largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music most common in saloons.
James Sylvester Scott was an American ragtime composer and pianist. He is regarded as one of the "Big Three" composers of classical ragtime along with Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb.
The "Maple Leaf Rag" is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's early works, becoming the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. It is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces. Its success led to Joplin being dubbed the "King of Ragtime" by his contemporaries. The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life.
George Botsford was an American composer of ragtime and other forms of music.
Euday Louis Bowman 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 highly popular "Twelfth Street Rag", a ragtime composition from 1914 out of a series of rags that Bowman wrote during or after a period in which he worked as a pianist in bordellos of Kansas City. These pieces, including "Sixth Street Rag", "Tenth Street Rag", "Eleventh Street Rag" and "Twelfth Street Rag," were named after streets of Fort Worth's redlight district.
Charles Theodore "Charley" Straight was an American pianist, bandleader and composer.
"The Entertainer" is a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin.
"If I Could Be with You (One Hour Tonight)" is a popular song, with music by James P. Johnson and lyrics by Henry Creamer. Published in 1926, the song was first recorded by Clarence Williams' Blue Five with vocalist Eva Taylor in 1927. It was popularized by the 1930 recording by McKinney's Cotton Pickers, who used it as their theme song and by Louis Armstrong's record for Okeh Records (catalogue No.41448), both of which featured in the charts of 1930. Armstrong's recording of "If I Could Be with You" is defined by his sparse vocal style and ornamental virtuosic trumpet-playing.
The "Black and White Rag" is a 1908 ragtime composition by George Botsford.
"Magnetic Rag" is a 1914 ragtime piano composition by American composer Scott Joplin. It is significant for being the last rag which Joplin published in his lifetime, three years before his death in 1917. It is also unique in form and in some of the musical techniques employed in the composition.
"Original Rags" was an early ragtime medley for piano. It was the first of Scott Joplin's rags to appear in print, in early 1899, preceding his "Maple Leaf Rag" by half a year.
"Weeping Willow" is a 1903 classic piano ragtime composition by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's simpler and less famous ragtime scores, written during a transitional period in his life, and one of the few pieces that Joplin cut as a piano roll in a 1916 session.
"The Ragtime Dance" is a piece of ragtime music by Scott Joplin, first published in 1902.
Brun Campbell was an American composer and pianist.
Trebor Jay Tichenor was a recognized authority on Scott Joplin and the ragtime era. He collected and published others' ragtime piano compositions and composed his own. He authored books about ragtime, and both on his own and as a member of The St. Louis Ragtimers, became a widely known ragtime pianist.
The "Searchlight Rag" is a ragtime composition by Scott Joplin, first published in 1907. It was named after the town of Searchlight, Nevada, where his friends had gone prospecting, inspiring the title.
"Heliotrope Bouquet" is a 1907 rag composed by Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin. The first section of the piece is unique in ragtime for its structure, rhythm and melody. Music historian Bill Edwards has speculated that this and the second section were most likely contributed by Chauvin, while the third and fourth section show Joplin’s style of composing.
Irene Cozad, later known as Irene Cozad-Sherer, was an American pianist, piano teacher, and composer of ragtime music.
