Veteran American Banjoist "Bill" Bowen died on January 21st at the age of 82 and with his passing the world has lost a player who did much to enhance the banjo scene during his lifetime.
"Bill" Bowen had been repairing a piano action at his home (for many years he had been a service manager for one of the largest piano houses in Jersey City and, although retired for some twelve years, he still did work for them in the vicinity of his home) and having promised to return it to the school on that Monday had failed to contact the man who helped him bring it to his home. Becoming impatient, his daughter Huldah offered to help him put it in his car. After some effort, they managed to get it in the car but, noting his obvious distress, his daughter told him he should go inside and rest. Mr. Bowen agreed, saying he thought he had a touch of indigestion. He walked to his garage about 20 feet away, put his hand out to support himself and slid to the ground. He was dead when Huldah reached him.
William ("Bill") D. Bowen was born in New Jersey on December 18th, 1880, and was a self-taught player of the banjo. As a youth of 15, he was appearing before large audiences and amazing his hearers with the cleverness of his playing, earning for him the appellations of "the boy wonder," "the Paderewski of the strings", and "the Mozart of the banjo". At one time during his early professional career, "Bill" Bowen had the distinction of holding up business on the New York Stock Exchange while many prominent brokers listened to his spirited music carried by telephone wires from a concert at which he was playing in Sag Harbor, Long Island.
Later he toured the vaudeville circuits with Mark King in a sketch called "Dooley & Son" which was written to highlight his banjo playing and the demand for encores often interfered with the progress of the sketch. As one critic at the time wrote, "He fairly made the banjo talk!"
Subsequently, Bowen was associated with Fred van Eps in concert work at the old New York Theatre and their duets won praise from all sections of the press. On this page, we reproduce a photograph of these two great banjoists as they were at that time.
When the plectrum-banjo started to enjoy a great vogue in the U.S., "Bill" Bowen, a versatile and progressive player, quickly acclimatised himself to the new trend and became a pre-eminent plectrum artist. In 1927, he led the William L. Lange Entertainers in a weekly evening broadcast from station WOR, New York City. Responsible for the thirty-minute broadcasts, Mr. Bowen selected his programmes with care and often featured his own banjo compositions and arrangements. At one time he also directed his own orchestra at the Hotel Robert Treat in Newark, N.J.
With the passing years, "Bill" Bowen returned to his first love, the finger-style banjo and, despite his age, his lightning-fast fingers could still faultlessly render the difficult selections of such classics as "Valse" (Chopin), "Miserere from '11 Trovatore, and "Zigeunerweisen" (Sarasate). It is true to say his banjo technique was equaled by few others. He was ever willing to pass on his knowledge to aspiring banjoists and many well-known players in the States attained success under his guidance. Among the most prominent of these was Miss Shirley Spaulding, probably the most famous of all female banjoists in the U.S.A. "Bill" Bowen's original compositions for the banjo have included "Banjo Shuffle", "Stepping Out", "A Ragtime Sneeze", "Sweet Dreams Mazurka", "Thoroughbred March", "Marche de Concert", "Ye Old Stone House Dance", "Flaming Melody”, "Nifty Notes”, "Intonation", "Ban Bow", "Falling Meteors", "Caprice Characteristic", and "Fond Recollections". His "Master Method for the Plectrum Banjo" was published by the Wm. J. Smith Music Co., in New York City in 1928.
At a concert held in New Rochelle, N.Y. on December 9th, 1950, the unrivalled partnership of "Bill" Bowen and Fred van Eps was renewed and numbers they included in their "act" were "Nola" (Arndt) and "Yankee Land" (Hoffman). He was the featured artist at the 1956 American Guild Convention when he made a great hit with such numbers as "Stepping Out," "Calico Rag," Morley's "Crackerjack" and his own arrangement of "Schon Rosmarin."
In January 1961, he fell and dislocated his hip and spent six weeks in hospital but back home he quickly took up his banjo playing again and, despite his advancing years, he seldom missed a meeting of the American Banjo Fraternity. The American banjo world has lost one of its finest and greatest players.