Little Bo-Peep has lost her jeep. By Jerry Bowne and Frank De Vol

New York: Southern Music publishing company inc, for Peer international corporation, , 1942 305 x 232 mm: Three leaves, paginated [1-2] 3-5 [6]. Piano-vocal score with guitar-chord diagrams; plate-mark "Little Bo Peep 3" on pages 4 and 5. Pictorial self-wrappers, large naive vignette (Pvt Jackson in a jeep tipping his helmet to Bo-Peep, unsigned) printed in blue and vermilion on the upper wrapper (page [1]), advertisements for songs by Fats Waller and Hoagy Carmichael on pages [2] and [6]. First edition. A very good copy. *** FIRST EDITION; and probably THE FIRST SEPARATELY PRINTED TEXT CELEBRATING THE JEEP AS AN ELEMENT OF POPULAR CULTURE. Indeed the present composition may be dated before 30 March 1942, when Horace Heidt's Musical Knights recorded it on the Columbia Microphone label (matrix HCO771, catalogue no. 36568). The song was performed by Spike Jones on the Kraft music hall radio program on 16 April 1942. It was performed too by The Korn Kobblers 1942-43, and included in The Korn Kobblers: America's most nonsensical band (1943). Another early jeep song, "Six jerks in a jeep" by Sid Robin, appeared in the motion-picture Private Buckaroo, 28 May 1942. A third early work, The little jeep by P. G. Ayers, appeared as a pamphlet dated 1942 but catalogued by the Library of Congress early in 1943. The composer Jerry Bowne was a singer who worked with Horace Heidt's orchestra, whose recording in March 1942 may therefore approximate the actual date of composition. Bowne's co-author Frank De Vol (1911-1999) played in the same orchestra; he was later responsible for the theme-music for Cat Ballou and other films, and for the television theme-songs for My three sons and The Brady bunch. Amusingly enough, the tempo of the present song is given as "Medium Bounce". By error, the penultimate syllable "hap-" is omitted here on page 5; and the same error is repeated in the Korn Kobblers reprint 1943. -- Apparently VERY SCARCE: Not in OCLC. Two orchestral scores are preserved in the WFAA collection, University of North Texas, Denton. -- Provenance: Betty Jo Ekert, signatures on upper wrapper (page [1]). . First edition..