From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sun Nov 24, 2002  7:18 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Scott Joplin

SCOTT JOPLIN

Born 24 November 1868, Texarkana, Texas
Died 1 April 1917, New York City, New York

Pianist, composer.
Ragtime was the second internationally popular genre in modern popular
music after minstrelsy, sweeping the world between circa 1897 and 1920.
In retrospect, ragtime is regarded as solo piano music, but that was only
its most highly developed (and most enduring) manifestation.
Ragtime's greatest composer was Scott Joplin. He lived in St. Louis during
1885-93, playing in local bars and clubs. In 1894 he led a band at the
Chicago World's Fair and formed the Texas Medley Quartet which played
in vaudeville shows. Relocating to Sedalia, MO, Joplin began having pieces
published as early as 1895 and in 1899 his "Maple Leaf Rag" (published by
his supporter John Stark) became ragtime's most popular number, selling
over 75,000 copies of sheet music during its first year. I remember someone
saying that "Maple Leaf Rag" was the first rock and roll song and I guess
there is something to be said for that.
Joplin soon had many other rags published that helped to make ragtime
the pop music of its day, but the tragedy of his life was that his goals
were beyond ragtime. He staged a ballet (The Ragtime Dance) and two
ragtime operas (The Guest of Honor and Treemonisha) but none were
successful, a fact that continually frustrated him. By 1910 Joplin was
becoming ill with syphilis and at his death in 1917, ragtime was in the
process of being replaced by jazz.
Ironically, 57 years after his death, Scott Joplin finally became a household
name because his music was used by Marvin Hamlisch in his score for the
popular film The Sting. The Hamlisch version of "The Entertainer" (written in
1902) went to # 3 on the Billboard charts in 1974. "Treemonisha" was revived
in 1976 by the Houston Grand Opera.
Although he only recorded cylinders and piano rolls, Scott Joplin's music
has been fully documented with "Maple Leaf Rag" becoming a Dixieland
jazz standard and pianist Richard Zimmerman (on an excellent five-LP set for
Murray Hill) recording everything that Joplin ever wrote.

Further reading:
A.W. Reed, The life and works of Scott Joplin. Chapel Hill : University of
North Carolina Press, 1973.
Peter Gammond, Scott Joplin and the ragtime era. London 1975.