Scott Joplin - Original Rags (1916)

Performed by: Scott Joplin

Full Song Title: Original Rags

Recorded in: date unknown, released 1916

Flip side of:    • Scott Joplin - The Entertainer (1916)  

Scott Joplin (born c. November 24, 1868 – died April 1, 1917) was an African-American composer and pianist. Joplin is also known as the "King of Ragtime" because of the fame achieved for his ragtime compositions, music that was born out of the African-American community. During his brief career, he wrote over 100 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.

Joplin grew up in a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Arkansas, and developed his own musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. While in Texarkana, Texas, he formed a vocal quartet and taught mandolin and guitar. During the late 1880s, he left his job as a railroad laborer and traveled the American South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893, which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.

Joplin moved to Sedalia, Missouri, in 1894 and earned a living as a piano teacher. There he taught future ragtime composers Arthur Marshall, Scott Hayden and Brun Campbell. He began publishing music in 1895, and publication of his "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him fame. This piece had a profound influence on writers of ragtime. It also brought Joplin a steady income for life, though he did not reach this level of success again and frequently had financial problems. In 1901, Joplin moved to St. Louis, where he continued to compose and publish and regularly performed in the community. The score to his first opera, A Guest of Honor, was confiscated in 1903 with his belongings for non-payment of bills and is now considered lost.

In 1907, Joplin moved to New York City to find a producer for a new opera. He attempted to go beyond the limitations of the musical form that had made him famous but without much monetary success. His second opera, Treemonisha, was never fully staged during his life.

By 1916, Joplin was suffering from tertiary syphilis, but more specifically it likely was neurosyphilis. In January 1917, he was admitted to Manhattan State Hospital, a mental institution. He died there on April 1 of syphilitic dementia at the age of 48 and was buried in a pauper's grave that remained unmarked for 57 years. His grave at St. Michael's Cemetery in East Elmhurst was finally given a marker in 1974. Joplin's death is widely considered to mark the end of ragtime as a mainstream music format; over the next several years, it evolved with other styles into stride, jazz and eventually big band swing.

A big thank you to Guillermo Pena for reminding me of Scott Joplin's wonderful music. I wanted to upload the record many years ago, but it must have slipped my memory. Well, better late than never, enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.

Best wishes,
Stu
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