George L. Cobb: Works

George L. Cobb (1886 - 1942) composed over 200 pieces of music including ragtimes, marches, and waltzes.

He collaborated with lyricist Jack Yellen on many early songs, and in 1950 Billboard described Cobb as a "roving music teacher". Cobb and Yellen sold their first big hit, All Aboard for Dixieland, for $100 in 1913. Their first song Moonlight Makes Me Lonesome For A Girl Like You was written in 1919. .

Cobb's most famous work is The Russian Rag, a composition based on the opening chord progression of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op.3, No.2. The piece was a big hit in 1918, and so Cobb wrote The New Russian Rag in 1923.

By 1917 Cobb began writing a monthly column titled "Just Between You and Me" in The Tuneful Yankee, a ragtime music magazine owned by publisher Walter Jacobs. The magazine also published many of Cobb's musical compositions. Cobb continued writing for the magazine after the name changed to Melody in 1918.

Tutorial

The Russian Rag Slow

Sheetmusic at imslp

IMSLP118040-PMLP239212-cobb_-_russian_rag__complete_score_