Missouri Musical Heritage Trail Proposed

In the month supposedly reserved for New Year resolutions, I prefer to look back forty years to an as yet unrealized resolution from the 1970s. As I conserve and index old sheet music in the Sedalia Ragtime Archive, I am amazed by both how prolific many early 1900s era composers were and also by how many were from Missouri. Bill Caldwell’s article in the Joplin Globe on New Year’s day this year reminded me of Percy Wenrich’s body of work down in the Southwest part of the state and that opened up the plethora of musical memories that included an old resolution. Back when we were organizing the first ragtime festival in Sedalia in the early1970s, I began investigating that small community’s role in the development of American popular music. In the process, I became aware of all the other forms of music that either began or were greatly enhanced by Missouri composers and performers. Being young and even more pretentious that I am today, back in 1975, I wrote to a distant relative, State Senator Emory Melton, when I read that he had been named chairman of the Missouri Tourism Commission. I was convinced I had the perfect tourism promotion for the state: a focus on the forms of American music that either originated in Missouri or were profoundly influenced by musicia