I met Steve Spracklen almost 50 years ago when I arranged a concert through Bob Vernon billed as “Three Generations of Ragtime.” Steve, Peter Lundberg, and “Ragtime Bob” Darch were the featured performers and they brought the sell-out audience to their feet. Darch and Spracklen had roots in southwest Missouri and Steve was one of many young ragtime musicians “Ragtime Bob” mentored in his career.
The two men maintained their friendship through the years, often working together or in proximity. It was because of their close relationship that Steve approached Bob about recording recollections of his long career on the “Ragtime Trail,” as Bob referred to his itinerant years on the road.
Finally, in 2001 just a year before Darch died, the two sat down together in several sessions and nearly 40 hours of tape later, Bob finished telling his stories. As an active musician and frequent performer on riverboats plying the Mississippi and its tributaries, Steve had little time to transcribe and, in some cases, “translate” those long-recorded narratives. However, he was adamant that the task would be finished by Bob’s birth centennial. I Thought You’d Never Ask was published by Lulu Publications one week before Bob’s 100th birthday. Sadly, the books were intended to be sold first at the Centennial Concert in Sedalia that had to be cancelled because of the coronavirus th
