In 1980, Pat Pepin was a young cosmology student at a school across from a music studio in Lewiston. 

“Every day I watched hippie-types entering with instruments,” Pepin says now. 

One day, the man who ran the studio noticed her fascination with the place and invited her in for a tour. 

That was her introduction to local music legend Edward “Ed” Boucher. And it was no surprise that Boucher invited her into his world because when it came to music, he was a man who just wanted to share the joy. 

Boucher, a musician, singer, songwriter and recording artist, died this week at the age of 79.  

By Thursday, news of his death was spreading and memories of the man came as fast and raucous as a rock and roll beat. 

“You were an influencer before it was the thing to be,” wrote Ann Chouinard Brown of Leeds. “So many lives were touched. So many lives were changed. Your smile and kindness were infectious. Heaven gained an amazing person. Raise hell up there!” 

Boucher is the man who wrote the jingle, about as famous as jingles get, for Marden’s back in the 1980s. But by the time he penned that catchy tune, he was already known as an icon in the Lewiston and Auburn area, and beyond. 

Boucher was co-founder of the Pal Hop dances and recorded his first record in 1961, squeezing his bandmates from the Royal Knights into the back of Maurice’s Music Mart in downtown Lewiston. There they were able to cut a single record while they played and sang. Three years later, when the band first recorded in a professional studio in Boston, Boucher, then 19, was awestruck. 

It wasn’t just the music he adored. It was the creation of it — the speakers and switches, microphones and whirring tape reels. 

“That was it,” he said in a 2013 interview with Sun Journal. “They had these big Altec speakers, and they were cranked. I knew right then and there I was going to be in the recording business.” 

Within a few years, Boucher created EAB Studio in a third-story space above Lisbon Street. There he transformed the former WCOU radio into a hub for local music and business jingles. 

Local artists, including Rick Pinette and Oak, Bill Chinnok, Devonsquare and Nick Knowlton, all recorded there. Knowlton and the band Katfish scored a place on the Billboard charts, hitting number 52 with a 1975 cover of the Beatles’ “Dear Prudence.” It was the most successful pop song Boucher ever recorded in the studio. 

He wrote popular jingles for Country Kitchen bread, Northern Mattress and Furniture Co., the Sausage Kitchen and the Lewiston Maineiacs. He’s probably best known for the line “I should have bought it when I saw it at Mardens.” 

Val Davis was working at a radio station in Lewiston in 1987 when he got a call from Boucher, who needed an announcer to voice commercials. Davis jumped at the chance and soon found himself in EAB studios. 

“I spent countless hours recording the voice overs for the spots which were being sold nationwide,” Davis, now living in Virginia, said on Thursday. “The studio was incredible. Eddie recorded hundreds of bands and musicians and contributed greatly to the music community in the area.  

“Eddie was also selfless,” Davis said. “If you had a dream, he wanted to help you figure out how to achieve it. He was a man of faith. He radiated love and people were drawn to him. He embraced all the good parts of Christianity without the judgement and dogma. He is free now and I know he will be lifting all of us up. I spoke to him about a month ago and I got to tell him I love him.” 

For musicians like Roger Blais, former member of the Innkeepers and active member of the Rockin’ Recons, Boucher’s impact on the local music scene could not be overstated. 

“He got us jobs everywhere,” said Blais. “We played in New York, Montreal, all over the place. He was just an amazing manager, friend and musician.” 

Boucher had been hoping to go see the Rockin’ Recons play recently, Blais said, but his health failed before he could make it. 

Boucher left behind a son, Emmanuel, and a granddaughter, Chloe.

Emmanuel grew up in music studios, learning the business from the master and singing on some of the jingles. He also became part of his father’s broader community of all the people he helped and worked with over the years.

“Though my heart hurts for me today,” Emmanuel said on Thursday, “it hurts most for all the people whose lives he touched.”

Emmanuel is planning an event to celebrate his father’s life and work, with details to be announced.

On Boucher’s Facebook page on Thursday, memories and condolences were came in fast all day long, each new memory a little bit different than the one before it. 

One woman recalled that while Boucher spent so much of his life making music, he also took time to do things for the community, such as playing Santa Claus for Christmas events. 

“Rest in Peace Edward Boucher,” wrote Leeanne Hewey, now living in Ocala, Florida. “You will never be forgotten as you will live in many others’ successes you helped create.” 

“He was an amazing musician, creative artist and the best by far Santa Claus every year,” Hewey wrote. 

The tributes to Boucher that poured in Thursday featured people from all walks of life who remember who Boucher changed their lives by giving them opportunities. 

Melissa Anne Martin, now in South Portland, wrote an open letter to Boucher on Facebook, recalling her own big break 50 years ago. 

“When I was 16 in the ’70s you let me do independent study at your studio,” Martin wrote. “I wanted to know how to be a recording engineer. I witnessed music being made and I got acquainted on the trade before I went to recording engineering school in Ohio. One day you gave me a project of putting music to some lyrics you were given. You liked it so much, you invested in getting it recorded and Harry King produced it.” 

Martin remembers that turn of events as a major milestone in her life. 

“It was played on 17 different radio stations with Shelley Roy on vocals,” she wrote. “Through the years we would stay in touch and you would ping me with something music. I am so sad you have moved from this mortal world.” 

And memories like that just kept coming throughout the day. Boucher had changed so many lives, it was hard for anyone to imagine what their lives would have been like without him. He had battled cancer for at least ten years, but always stayed connected to the community and to the world of music.

Davis, like so many others, is quick to point out that in spite of Boucher’s great successes in music, as a person he was much more than that. He was a man who loved his family, his friends and the community that supported him. 

“He was really into the Lewiston community,” Davis said. “He lifted up in the community and everyone who was around him. He was just so accommodating and open and loving to everybody. Eddie was just amazing.” 

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