Scott Joplin
November 24, 1868 — April 1, 1917
Scott Joplin was the "King of Ragtime," the African-American composer and pianist who elevated a syncopated, rhythmically daring popular music form into sophisticated art. His rags remain among the most instantly recognizable pieces in American musical history.
Texas Roots and Musical Education
Born on November 24, 1868, in northeastern Texas — near Texarkana — to a formerly enslaved father and a free mother, Joplin showed extraordinary musical aptitude from childhood. He taught himself to play a neighbor's piano and received formal instruction from a German-born music teacher, Julius Weiss, who introduced him to classical European forms and instilled a seriousness of musical purpose that would define his career. By his teens he was traveling the Mississippi River circuit as an itinerant musician, absorbing the syncopated rhythms of Black musical culture that were coalescing into what would be called ragtime.
Maple Leaf Rag and Fame
Joplin settled in Sedalia, Missouri, in the late 1890s, studying composition at the George R. Smith College for Negroes and performing at the Maple Leaf Club. In 1899 his publisher John Stark issued "Maple Leaf Rag," which became the first piece of sheet music to sell one million copies. The syncopated, richly harmonized composition was unlike anything marketed as popular music before it — complex enough to be taken seriously by trained musicians yet irresistible to the general public. Joplin followed it with dozens of rags and aspired to be recognized as a serious composer. "The Entertainer," published in 1902, would gain its widest audience decades after his death when used in the 1973 film The Sting.
Did You Know?
Joplin spent years and most of his earnings trying to get his opera, Treemonisha, produced. The work — a fully notated opera addressing Black progress through education — was performed only once in his lifetime, in 1915, without costumes or orchestra, in a Harlem rehearsal hall. It received a cold reception. Joplin never recovered from the disappointment; he was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 when the opera was finally properly staged and acclaimed.
Legacy and Revival
Joplin died on April 1, 1917, in New York City, impoverished and suffering from the late stages of syphilis. He was buried in an unmarked grave. For decades his work was largely dismissed as novelty entertainment. The 1970s ragtime revival — sparked by the The Sting soundtrack — transformed his reputation permanently. Joplin is now recognized as a major American composer. His home in St. Louis is a National Historic Landmark, and his collected works are studied in conservatories alongside Chopin and Debussy.