Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin was born sometime between the summer of 1867 and mid-January 1868 in northeast Texas, probably near the Texas-Arkansas border. The exact birthplace remains uncertain; TSHA places it possibly near Caves Spring outside Linden, while the family had moved to Texarkana by about 1875. His father had been enslaved before the Civil War and his mother worked as a domestic servant. Joplin learned banjo and piano as a child and received free formal instruction from Julius Weiss, a German-born music teacher who exposed him to harmony, sight reading and opera.

Joplin's mature career unfolded largely outside Texas. In Sedalia, Missouri, he studied, taught and absorbed the Black social-music culture that fed ragtime. Maple Leaf Rag, published in 1899, became his signature work and one of the defining pieces of the genre. He later pursued larger forms, including the opera Treemonisha, and published School of Ragtime to insist that ragtime deserved disciplined musical treatment rather than caricature. Joplin died in New York in 1917. His reputation revived dramatically in the 1970s through new performances of Treemonisha and the use of The Entertainer in The Sting; a posthumous Pulitzer special citation followed in 1976.

Joplin's importance is larger than the nickname 'King of Ragtime.' He treated ragtime as composed music with formal standards, trained younger musicians and tried to connect African American rhythmic language with ballet and opera. His work helped make ragtime a bridge between nineteenth-century Black musical life and later American popular and concert traditions.

Texas belongs primarily to the formation of Joplin rather than the peak of his career. The uncertain northeast-Texas birthplace, Texarkana childhood, family music making and early instruction form the opening chapter; Sedalia, St. Louis and New York are where the composer developed the works for which he became famous.