Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin was a musician and composer of ragtime music. He was born in 1867 to ex-slave parents who worked as laborers on a Texas farm.  At an early age they moved to Texarkana. It was here that Scott was exposed to the piano and learned to play.  His mother worked as a house cleaner, and one of the families whose house she cleaned let him play their piano while she cleaned the house. When his talent was recognized he was formally instructed by a German music teacher, who taught him about classical music.

By the 1880s Joplin was living in Sedalia, Missouri, playing in bands from St. Louis to Chicago as a cornet player, and studying music at George R Smith College.  While in Sedalia he started a vocal group called the Texas Medley Quartette. During an 1895 appearance in Syracuse, NY, the quality of Joplin's original songs for the Texas Medley Quartette so impressed a group of local businessmen that they arranged for Joplin's first publications.  In 1898 Joplin published his first ragtime composition, Original Rags.  The following year he hired a lawyer before publishing his next and most famous song, The Maple Leaf Rag.  Joplin and his attorney negotiated with publisher John Stark a payment of one cent for every sale, which provided him an income far greater than most composers of the day.  By 1902 Joplin had moved to St. Louis and published several more compositions including The Entertainer and The Ragtime Dance.

Joplin now devoted all his time to composing and teaching. He published the ballet Rag Time Dance in 1902 and created his first opera, A Guest of Honor, for a Midwestern tour in 1903. The production was shut down because someone stole the money they had made from selling tickets. Because of this, Joplin dealt with great financial losses. Despite the setback Joplin continued to write, and publish dozens of compositions including ragtime songs, waltzes, marches, and several operas through 1910. 

By 1907, Joplin had settled in New York to work on securing funding for another opera he had created, Treemonisha, a multi-genre theatrical project which told the story of a rural African-American community near Texarkana. Treemonisha was presented in 1915 as a scaled-down production with voice and piano, but would not receive a full-stage treatment for years to come. The American Music and Art Journal claimed “It is the most influential American opera ever composed.”  Unfortunately Joplin never received the financial backing to produce the opera in full.  Also by 1915 ragtime’s popularity was being eclipsed by jazz.  In 1916 Joplin was institutionalized due to failing health from a bacterial infection and died in 1917.

Scott Joplin produced an enormous body of musical work that included ragtime songs, vaudeville acts, musicals, symphonies, piano concertos, operas, and waltzes.  His music broke color barriers, inspired future composers and musicians, and influenced the growth of jazz.

Ragtime would enjoy a resurgence during the 1940s, and again in the 1970s.  One of his most famous compositions, The Entertainer, was featured as the theme song of a popular movie called The Sting in 1973. Joplin's Treemonisha was also fully staged in 1975 on Broadway. The following year, Joplin received a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize, honoring the man who shaped a genre that influenced decades of music.