Life was not easy – ‘a hardscrabble existence on barren Texas scrubland’ in the words of one biographer – yet there was still joy to be had in the Joplin family’s music making. What is known is that his mother, Florence, hailed from Kentucky, while his father, Giles, a former slave, came from North Carolina. Recent biographers agree that Joplin was born near Marshall, Texas, probably in 1867, but certainly not on 24 November 1868, the usual date given. Tracing the life of the ‘King of Ragtime’ has challenged biographers – the paper trail, beyond newspaper accounts of his achievements and some official documents, is thin. The Entertainer is one of the most well-known ragtime pieces in history. Joplin, who died in 1916, would have been delighted by all the attention. In 1983, Joplin’s face appeared on a US postage stamp. Scott Joplin, a film about the composer’s life, came out in 1977, while choreographer Kenneth MacMillan used Joplin’s music as the score to his 1974 ballet Elite Syncopations (recently revived at the Birmingham Royal Ballet).
Ragtime music professional#
Amateur and professional pianists alike discovered ragtime, adding such gems as The Entertainer and The Maple Leaf Rag to their repertoire. The Sting arrived on the wave of a major ragtime revival. Marvin Hamlisch won an Academy Award for his arranging efforts, however, the real credit must go to the composer, Scott Joplin – ‘The King of Ragtime’. Our impression of ragtime has also been shaped by the use of rags in the soundtrack of the hugely successful 1973 film, The Sting, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Think of ‘ragtime’ and your first mental image might be of a man with a twirly moustache, wearing a boater hat and a striped shirt with braces, who’s sitting at an upright piano and pounding out a jaunty rag.įrom our vantage point, more than 100 years later, ragtime seems like the innocent music of an almost comically innocent age.
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