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Sleepy Lou (1906) A Raggy Two Step

Composer:	Giblin  (1888-1974)	Suppliers:
Editor:	Geoff Grainger	Sextet:	Treble/Tenor/Tenor/Tenor/Bass/Great Bass(Bass)
Publisher:	Ditty Box Enterprises	Publication:	DBE 096
Audio:	Audio file information

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Purchasing information Notice for leaders/bass players

Length: approx. 2½ mins. Sounds best if the bass is doubled.
Sleepy Lou has all the ascending and descending syncopated chromatic passages that anyone could wish for, which is typical of and can be expected from Irene Giblin in all her ragtime compositions. Sleepy Lou appears to have been a young lady, at least judging from the cover of the original sheet music where a demure Miss is shown as a stigma amidst its petals on an opening flower. The name of Bertha Youngs is inscribed immediately underneath this catching portrait. Whether she is indeed Sleepy Lou herself or the illustrator remains a matter of conjecture. The piece is scored Slow and Drag so perhaps the effect to strive for is to suggest the processes between drowsiness upon awakening to full consciousness and raring to go. Its form is AABACB with a 4-bar introduction whereby all strains are of 16 bars and all in the same key of Eb-major.
This recorder adaptation contrasts very much with the quartet version by Stan Davis. Here the original range scale, dynamics and key of Eb-major have all been retained.
Sleepy Lou was published by Jerome H. Remick & Co., New York & Detroit, USA.
A tempo of 80 crotchets/min. is suggested.
There is also a treble solo version of this item.

"Sleepy Lou (1906)" has been recorded by:
 Virginia Eskin on "Fluffy Ruffle Girls: Women in Ragtime"