Black musicians have had an extraordinary impact on American music. From blues and gospel, to rock and hip hop, an incredible number of genres were born in the Black community. Individual musicians attained great fame and sometimes wealth, while collectively Black musicians helped to break down racial barriers. Previously, I have written about stamps that feature W. C. Handy, Louis Armstsrong, Duke Ellington, James W. Johnson, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. However, before all of those groundbreaking musicians, is a figure that I think does not get enough attention. That is the “King of Rag,” the amazing pianist and composer, Scott Joplin. Finally, I am getting around to writing a post to pay tribute to this towering figure in the history of American music and the 1983 stamp that features him.
His Life
The son of a former slave, there is mystery around Joplin’s birth. He was probably born near the Texas / Arkansas border around 1868. By 1880, his family was in Texarkana, Arkansas, where his father worked for the railroad and his mother cleaned houses. His father played the violin and his mother the banjo, so Joplin’s earliest exposure to music was in his home. He began to play the piano at the age of seven.
The German born, Jewish musician Julius Weiss, immigrated to Texas in the late 1860s and taught music to prominent families. At the age of 11, Joplin began studying with the Weiss. The older man recognized Joplin’s enormous talent and taught him free of charge. Weiss taught Joplin European folk and classical traditions.
In the 1890s, Joplin began touring as a musician, playing piano in churches and brothels. During this period, he played cornet and arranged music for a band that performed at the Chicago 1893 World’s Fair. His musical touring took his as far away as Syracuse, New York, and deep into Texas. In 1894, Joplin moved to Sedalia, Missouri, where he began teaching and composing. He married Belle Hayden in 1899 and the two moved to St. Louis the following year. Joplin wrote most of his famous music in the years he lived in St. Louis, even as his marriage fell apart. He married a second time in 1904, to Freddie Alexander, who died ten weeks after they married.
In 1907, Joplin moved to New York City where he met and married his third wife Lottie Stokes in 1909. Joplin died of syphilis on April 1, 1917 at the age of 48.
His Music
During Joplin’s life, there was great money to be made in writing music that could be published and sold as sheet music for amateur musicians to play in their home. He published two songs in 1895 and another three songs the following year. It is likely that it was around that time that Joplin first heard, and started playing, rag music.
Ragtime was a style of music that developed in St. Louis around 1895. The music was based somewhat on the structure of then popular military marches, except that instead of a straight beat, ragtime made use of syncopated, or “ragged” rhythm. The first rag to be published was William Krell’s “Mississippi Rag” published in 1897. That same year, Joplin’s “Original Rags” appeared in print.
However, it was his 1899 “Maple Leaf Rag,” that would be his best-known piece. The song became the model for hundreds of rags written by many composers over the following two decades. It also earned Joplin the title of the “King of Ragime.” Joplin developed and refined the style through the publication of more than forty rags including such favorites as “Sugar Cane Rag,” and “The Entertainer.”
In his later years, Joplin turned his attention to writing larger scale art music. He wrote two full scale operas and a ballet. In 1976, he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music forhis opera Treemonisha. Scholars of the second half of the twentieth century began to appreciate Joplin’s importance in American music, and as a Black composer.
The Stamp
The postage stamp featuring Scott Joplin was issued on June 9, 1983 at the former site of the Maple Leaf Club in Sedalia, Missouri, where Joplin played often during his lifetime. The design of the stamp was by Jerry Pinkney of Croton-on-Hudson, New York. The design features two images of Joplin. The main image is a portrait of the composer that comes from a photograph that is found in “The Collected Works of Scott Joplin II,” edited by Vera Brodsky Lawrence. Smaller, and in front to the right, is a drawing of Scott Joplin seated at an upright piano.
While Scott Joplin deserves the honor of appearing on a postage stamp, there are two stamp sets that I believe should have included him. The first was in 1940, when five American composers were featured on stamps. I believe his exclusion was because of the racism of that era. I also argue that Joplin shouldhave been included in the Legends of American Music set from the 1990s. He was important enough that a second stamp honoring him would have been appropriate.
Listen to Joplin’s most famous work, “The Maple Leaf Rag,” played by Joplin himself – taken from a player piano roll.
