Scott Joplin was an American composer of ragtime, a form of syncopated piano music. Joplin was responsible for bringing ragtime out of its red-light district origins and into respectability. Although not the first to compose ragtime, Joplin was one of the first African-American composer to have his works published. His works were extremely well-known in their day, especially his greatest, Maple Leaf Rag, which is still popular today. Extensive use of Joplin's works was made in the film The Sting featuring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Complete information about Scott Joplin may be found in Edward A. Berlin's excellent biography King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and his Era.

Sedalia, Missouri was Scott Joplin's home for only a few years, but it was a home with a special meaning for him. It is with good reason that Sedalia has become central to the Joplin story and the site of the annual Scott Joplin Festival. There is no question as to Joplin's greatness, his talent, his importance in the history of ragtime and American music. He was born in Texas, probably in the Northeast part of the state between June 1867 and mid-January 1868. When he was still a young child, his family left the farm on which his father (formerly a slave) worked as a laborer. They moved to the newly established town of Texarkana, which straddles the Texas-Arkansas border. The Joplins lived on both sides of the border. Anecdotes relate that the young Scott gained access to a piano in a white-owned home where his mother worked, and taught himself the rudiments of music.

The first documented sign of Joplin's musical career is in the summer of 1891 when, as reported in newspapers, he was back in Texarkana working with a minstrel troupe. In 1893, he was in Chicago at the time of the World's Fair, leading a band and playing cornet, probably somewhere outside the fair grounds. After the fair he returned to Sedalia, established it as his home, and played first cornet in the Queen City Cornet Band, a local ensemble of black musicians. His membership in the band was for only about a year, and on leaving he formed his own band, working at dances and other events.

It was probably in 1896 that he attended music classes at George R. Smith College in Sedalia, an institution for African-Americans established by the Methodist Church on land donated by daughters of the town's founder. Since the college and its records were destroyed in a fire in 1925, we have no evidence of the extent of Joplin's studies, but anecdotes suggest that until the end of the 1890s he still lacked complete mastery of music notation. This technical deficit did not prevent him from developing as a composer. In 1896 he published two marches and a fine waltz. Late in 1898 he tried to publish his first two piano rags, but succeeded in selling only Original Rags. This publication experience was not satisfactory as he was forced to share credit with a staff arranger. Charles N. Daniels' name was added as "arranger," and on the copyright and in some newspaper advertisements Daniels was cited as composer. Before Joplin published his next rag, he obtained the assistance and guidance of a young lawyer, Sedalia resident Robert Higdon. In August 1899 they contracted with Sedalia music store owner and publisher John Stark to publish The Maple Leaf Rag, which was to become the greatest and most famous of piano rags. The contract specified that Joplin would receive a one-cent royalty on each sale, a condition that rendered Joplin a small, but steady income for the rest of his life. Sales in the first year were slight, only about 400. This is probably because Stark was at the time only a small-town publisher, and the Maple Leaf is a difficult piece to play. But as Maple Leaf became known, sales increased substantially. By 1909, approximately a half-million copies had been sold, and that rate was to continue for the next two decades. Within weeks of the Maple Leaf's publication, Joplin completed The Ragtime Dance, a stage work for dancers and singing narrator. It is a folk-ballet of sorts, illustrating the type of dancing that was done in the Black 400 and Maple Leaf clubs.

Joplin published one more rag while in Sedalia, Swipesy. Cake Walk, a collaboration with his student Arthur Marshall. He then moved, in 1901, to St. Louis with his new wife, Belle, the widow of Scott Hayden's older brother. His publisher John Stark had also moved to St. Louis, and Joplin frequently passed time at the publishing office, talking with other ragtimers and with Stark's daughter Eleanor, a highly accomplished classical piano recitalist. Eleanor was part owner in her father's firm and was his major musical adviser. Her influence on both her father and on Joplin seems to have been significant, for Stark called his publishing firm "The House of Classic Rags," and Joplin further developed his aspirations as a classical musician. It was probably through her, also, that Joplin met in 1901 with Alfred Ernst, conductor of the St. Louis Choral Symphony Society, the city's most important music organization. In a newspaper interview following this meeting, Ernst commented on Joplin's musicality, his interest in classical music, and declared him to be a genius as a composer of ragtime.

Among Joplin's significant publications in St. Louis were;

Sunflower Slow Drag (a collaboration with Scott Hayden)

Peacherine Rag

The Easy Winners (all in 1901)

Cleopha

The Strenuous Life (a tribute to President Theodore Roosevelt)

A Breeze from Alabama

Elite Syncopations

The Entertainer, and The Ragtime Dance (all in 1902).

Early in 1903 he filed a copyright application for an opera, A Guest of Honor. A few months later, he formed an opera company with personnel of 30, rehearsed the work at the Crawford Theatre in St. Louis, and embarked on a tour scheduled to take him to towns in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. Early in the tour, someone associated with the company stole the box office receipts, seriously damaging the company's financial position. It was probably in Pittsburg, Kansas, a couple of weeks later, that the tour ended, with Joplin unable to meet his payroll. Furthermore, unable to pay for the company's board at a theatrical boarding house, all of his possessions, including the music from the opera, were confiscated. Copies of the score were never filed with the Library of Congress and the music has never been recovered. Comments in newspapers reveal what the opera was about: black leader Booker T. Washington's dinner at President Roosevelt's White House in 1901. This was an event that polarized the nation, with African-Americans, naturally, taking pride in the event. It was for this reason that Joplin paid tribute to Roosevelt with his piano rag A Strenuous Life, and then tried to memorialize the event with his opera. Joplin had expected Stark to publish the opera, and indicated this in his copyright application. Stark's decision not to publish it may have caused a temporary break between the two, leading Joplin to publish with other firms in 1903, including Something Doing (another collaboration with Hayden), Weeping Willow, and Palm Leaf Rag.

Following the failed opera tour, Joplin went to Chicago for a few months, and then returned to Arkansas to visit relatives. In Arkansas he met Freddie Alexander, a 19-year-old woman, and was so taken with her that he dedicated The Chrysanthemum to her. Probably because ragtime was considered in many circles to be a disreputable form, Joplin sought to endow this rag with more dignity by portraying it as "An Afro-American Intermezzo." The music was published by Stark in the early spring of 1904, and in April Joplin returned to Sedalia, where he distributed copies and gave several concerts. From there he went to St. Louis for the opening of the World's Fair, where his Cascades, written for the Fair, received much play. Two other significant rag publications from this year are The Sycamore and The Favorite. In June, his marriage with Belle having ended, Joplin returned to Arkansas and married Freddie Alexander in Little Rock. Following the marriage, the couple traveled by train to Sedalia, stopping at towns along the way so that Joplin could give concerts. Early in July they arrived in Sedalia, where Joplin continued his concertizing. Tragically, Freddie developed a cold that progressed into pneumonia, and she died at the age of 20 on September 10, 1904, ten weeks after their marriage. After Freddie's funeral, Joplin left Sedalia and never returned.

Through the next few years his career seems to have floundered and, having lost much of his money on the failed opera, he was in a poor financial condition. He spent most of the time in St. Louis, picking up insignificant playing jobs for little money. His Binks' Waltz was written as a commission from a local businessman. Still, he issued several outstanding works during this period. In 1905, his publications included the ragtime waltz Bethena, the ragtime song Sarah Dear, Leola, in which he further develops musical ideas first used in the Maple Leaf, and The Rose-Bud March, dedicated to his friend Tom Turpin, who operated the Rosebud Bar. Of these, only The Rose-Bud was published by Stark, although Leola was issued by a company that may have been associated with Stark. In 1906 Stark issued the march Antoinette and a piano version of the Ragtime Dance. Eugenia, a significant rag, went to a Chicago publisher. Joplin spent part of 1907 in Chicago, living for a while with his Sedalian friend Arthur Marshall. While in Chicago he got together with Louis Chauvin, a brilliant young pianist he had met in St. Louis, and together they composed Heliotrope Bouquet, one of the most enchanting of all rags. Chauvin died several months later, Heliotrope being his only published rag.

In the summer of 1907 Joplin went to New York to make contacts with new publishers and to find financial backing for Treemonisha, an opera he had been working on for the past few years. Stark was also in New York at this time, and Joplin renewed his friendly relationship with the publisher and his family. It was while at the store connected to Stark's office that Joplin met Joseph Lamb, a young white man who composed ragtime as an avocation. The two became friends and on Joplin's recommendation Stark published Lamb's Sensation in 1908. Lamb went on to become one of ragtime's great composers and during the rest of the ragtime years published only with Stark. Joplin published Nonpareil with Stark in 1907 and Fig Leaf Rag and Heliotrope Bouquet with him in 1908, but sought out new publishers for his other works: in 1907, Searchlight Rag and Gladiolus Rag (another Maple Leaf clone) with Jos. W. Stern, and Rose Leaf Rag.

In 1911, Irving Berlin published his greatest hit song up to that time, Alexander's Ragtime Band, and Joplin complained to friends that the song's verse was taken from the "Marching Onward" section of "A Real Slow Drag" in Treemonisha. Joplin then altered that section and published the opera himself in mid-May, 1911. The opera's story, written by Joplin, takes place in a rural, black community in Arkansas, not far from his childhood home of Texarkana. In part, the opera is a tribute to both his mother, for the way that Treemonisha obtains her education, and to Freddie, with the opera's action occurring in September 1884, the month and year of Freddie's birth.

In 1913 Joplin formed, with his new wife Lottie, his own publishing company, and they issued Magnetic Rag in 1914. During the next two years, Joplin composed several new rags and songs, a vaudeville act, a musical, a symphony, and a piano concerto, but none of these were published and the manuscripts have been lost. By 1916, Joplin was experiencing the devastating physical and mental effects of tertiary syphilis, a disease he had probably contracted almost two decades earlier. By mid-January, 1917, he had to be hospitalized, and was soon transferred to a mental institution where he died on April 1, 1917.

Scott Joplin was the most sophisticated and tasteful ragtime composer of the era. But he aspired to more. His goal was to be a successful composer for the lyric stage and he continually worked toward this end. That he called himself "King of Ragtime Writers," omitting a claim for his piano playing, reveals his recognition that not all of his music musical skills were on the same high level. His piano playing was described as mediocre, perhaps due to early effects of syphilis. He also played cornet and violin, but put little effort into developing himself on those instruments. He is reported to have had a fine singing voice, and performed at times as a singer. He also had perfect pitch and, on becoming proficient at music notation, composed away from the piano. As a person, he was intelligent, well-mannered and well-spoken. He was extremely quiet, serious and modest. He had few interests other than music. He was not good at small talk and rarely volunteered information, but if a subject interested him, he might become animated in his conversation. He was generous with his time and was willing to assist and instruct younger musicians. He had a profound belief in the importance of education. At the time of his death, he was almost forgotten. Interest in ragtime, too, was quickly waning as the new style of "jazz" took center stage. But Joplin never slipped totally into oblivion. His Maple Leaf Rag continued to exercise its magic on successive generations of musicians and music lovers.

One critic called it "a national calamity," and declared that its fans had "sold themselves body and soul to the musical Satan." The renowned composer Antonin Dvorak, on the other hand, after touring the United States came to the conclusion that what he called its "beautiful and varied themes" presented the future of American music. The genre of music in debate was called ragtime and its most accomplished performer was Scott Joplin. The exact origins of ragtime were not known. The rhythmically complex music was the product of Baptist hymns and European classics. Joplin himself had gained his musical instruction from his father, an accomplished violinist and former slave. He was also influenced musically by the syncopated style of plantation songs and dances he learned from his mother. In the late 1890's Joplin was living in the small Missouri town of Sedalia when he composed his first hit, "The Maple Leaf Rag." Unlike some critics, Joplin viewed ragtime as a serious musical form that drew upon a variety of styles and ethnic influences. Many of those who criticized it as a crude entertainment did so because it emanated from African American culture. Critic E.R. Kroeger complained, "Is it true that we must accept the music of another race as being that which is American? Have not the white Americans sufficient individuality to develop a characteristic style of composition?" The music buying public while unable to define ragtime, was certain of one thing, they loved it. In 1900, "The Maple Leaf Rag" was flying off the shelves of music stores everywhere. In Sedalia alone, music seller John Stark sold 75,000 copies. The composition would reach sales of over 1 million copies.