Scott Joplin

In the early 1970s, Americans became captivated by piano music written more than 60 years earlier by Scott Joplin. Known as rags, these tunes featured syncopated, foot-tapping rhythms , rich harmonies, and bouncy melodies.

Rags had been popular in the early 1900s, but they were largely forgotten until 1973, when they were featured in a hit movie, The Sting. Suddenly, pianists across the country were playing “The Entertainer” and other rags by Joplin, who received overdue recognition as an important composer.

Born into a musical family headed by an ex-slave, Scott Joplin left home at 17 and moved first to St. Louis and then to Chicago, where he earned a living as a pianist. After studying music at George Smith College in Sedalia, Missouri, he began writing his own songs. One of his early compositions, Maple Leaf Rag, made enough money to allow Joplin to devote himself entirely to composing.

In addition to some 50 piano rags, Joplin wrote operas and ballets. But his wish to be recognized as a “serious” composer was unfufilled until long after his death in 1917. His opera, Treemonisha, was performed to critical acclaim in 1972. Because of the reborn popularity of his rags, recordings of Joplin’s music accounted for an incredible 75 percent of all albums on classical best-seller lists in 1975. And in 1976, the “King of Ragtime” was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his contribution to American music.