The 12th Street Rag, as ubiquitous a Ragtime tune as can be found, was a remarkably important tune in its time that has been largely forgotten. Euday Bowman, whose career was beginning to take off at the time, composed the 12th Street Rag in 1914. In 1916 he made the fateful decision to sell the rights to the song to Jenkins Music Company for what must have seemed at the moment to be a generous sum of $100. However, while out of its creator’s reach, the 12th Street Rag became one of the most famous songs of the era. It was credited with reinvigorating the genre and inspiring many jazz numbers. Legendary artists like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong did their own covers of it. For Euday Bowman though, not a cent in royalties would be seen until almost the very end of his life when he won rights back in the late 1940’s.

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