Euday Bowman, a peripatetic pianist from Texas, wrote this high-flying ragtime classic in 1914 to celebrate one of the main streets in Kansas City's red-light district. Though it was originally a piano solo, it received its first set of lyrics in 1919 and another set in 1942. During the late 20s, it was featured by Abe Lyman's orchestra, but the great revival took place when the towering trombonist Pee Wee Hunt recorded it with his own small Dixieland band in 1951. Sales soared over the million mark, and jukebox listeners couldn't get their fill. Today it remains a crowd-pleaser.
