Tom-Boy Sue

Malden, Massachusetts: Edward A. Bowen, 1910. Folio, wraps, 5 pp. Fine condition.. An unrecorded sheet about two romantic youngsters by Harry Reardon, who was apparently a local composer of comic songs active in the Brockton, Massachusetts area during this period (we find a newspaper record in newspapers of a recital at the Fidelity Lodge in Brockton in 1911). The song extols the virtue of a girl named (Tom-Boy) Sue, and laments “Remember when folks called you ‘tomboy’ / in schooldays when I was your beau…” before becoming more straightforwardly romantic and sentimental. Edward A. Bowen operated as a small regional music publisher in Malden, Massachusetts, in the opening decades of the twentieth century, issuing locally authored popular songs, novelty numbers, and light sentimental pieces for domestic piano performance. Unlike the larger Boston and New York houses, Bowen’s imprint appears primarily on works by area composers and performers. Of interest to Massachusetts imprint completists, those interested in the tomboy archetype in popular culture, or perhaps the Johnny Cash fan in your life. Not in OCLC, with no other records appearing in sheet music collections.