Scott Joplin: The King of Ragtime Music
Written by Caty Weaver
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VOICE ONE:
I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Barbara Klein with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about the life and work of one of America’s greatest music writers: Scott Joplin, the King of Ragtime.
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VOICE ONE:
That song is called “Maple Leaf Rag.” Scott Joplin wrote it more than one hundred years ago. The song changed Joplin’s life. It was very popular. The composer earned a good living from the sales of the sheet music. He also became famous.
But, even today, much about Scott Joplin remains a mystery. There is conflicting information about the most basic facts, like when and where he was born.Official population documents suggest Scott Joplin was born in eighteen sixty-seven and eighteen sixty-eight. He was born in Texas, probably near the border with Arkansas. The Joplins moved to Texarkana, Texas sometime after eighteen seventy-five and Scott grew up there.
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VOICE TWO:
Scott was the second of seven children born to Giles and Florence Joplin. His father was a freed slave who worked on the railroad. His mother cleaned people’s homes.
The whole Joplin family was musical. Scott’s father played the violin. His mother played the banjo. And all the Joplins enjoyed singing together at home.
Scott learned to play several musical instruments. But Florence Joplin wanted her son to learn how to play the piano. When Scott was about seven years old he began taking piano lessons with a music teacher at his school. The Joplins were poor, so Scott’s mother paid for the weekly lessons with food. Florence Joplin also got permission for her son to use a piano in one of the houses she cleaned in Texarkana.
Florence and Giles Joplin separated before Scott became a teenager. Some experts think Scott blamed himself for the break-up. Many experts also think Scott Joplin’s opera “Treemonisha” included incidents of his life with his mother after Giles Joplin left. For example, the character “Treemonisha” receives music lessons paid for by her mother who cleans people’s houses. Listen to this aria from the opera. Carmen Balthrop is Treemonisha.
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VOICE ONE:
Scott Joplin’s early piano lessons did not include ragtime. That kind of music was played in dance and drinking places and was not considered acceptable.Scott first studied classical music with several teachers. They included a German immigrant named Julius Weiss who probably had the strongest influence on the boy.
VOICE TWO:
Scott left Texas when he was a teenager. He worked as a piano player and gave lessons in the guitar and mandolin. In his twenties he settled in Sedalia, Missouri. He formed a group called the Texas Medley Quartet. The group sometimes traveled great distances to perform. Scott Joplin began his music-writing career in Sedalia. He attended college classes to learn to become a composer.
Joplin also got a permanent job in Sedalia playing the piano in a new nightclub. Sedalia’s most important citizens visited the Maple Leaf Club. The job permitted Joplin time to write and play his own work.
Something even more important happened to Joplin in Sedalia. He met John Stark, the owner of a local music store. In eighty ninety-nine, Stark published the song “Maple Leaf Rag.” It was not Joplin’s first published music. But it was the he was most proud of.
Stark offered to pay Joplin a percentage of each sale of “Maple Leaf Rag” sheet music. This was an extremely unusual business agreement for a white publisher and black composer at that time. Usually, white publishers paid only a small amount of money for full ownership of music written by African-Americans. The agreement was very good for both Scott Joplin and John Stark.
