Scott Joplin (?? 1867 to April 1, 1917)
Ragtime Compositions
1896 Great Crush Collision Combination March Harmony Club Waltz 1899 Original Rags Maple Leaf Rag 1900 Swipsey Cake Walk [1] 1901 Sunflower Slow Drag [2] Peacherine Rag Augustan Club Waltz The Easy Winners 1902 Cleopha A Breeze From Alabama Elite Syncopations The Entertainer March Majestic The Strenuous Life The Ragtime Dance (Song) 1903 Something Doing [2] Weeping Willow Palm Leaf Rag 1904 The Favorite The Sycamore The Cascades The Chrysanthemum 1905 Bethena Rosebud March Leola Binks' Waltz Eugenia 1906 Antoinette The Ragtime Dance (Rag)	1907 Lily Queen [1] Heliotrope Bouquet [3] Searchlight Rag Gladiolus Rag Rose Leaf Rag Nonpariel 1908 Fig Leaf Rag Sugar Cane Pine Apple Rag 1909 Wall Street Rag Solace Pleasant Moments Country Club Euphonic Sounds Paragon Rag 1910 Stoptime Rag 1911 Felicity Rag [2] 1912 Scott Joplin's New Rag 1911 Kismet Rag [2] 1914 Magnetic Rag Treemonisha     Frolic of the Bears     Prelude to Act 3     A Real Slow Drag 1917 (Posth) Reflection Rag 1970 (Posth) Silver Swan Rag (191?)    1. w/Arthur Marshall    2. w/Scott Hayden    3. w/Louis Chauvin
Songs
1895 Please Say You Will A Picture of Her Face 1902 I Am Thinking of My Pickaninny    Days [4] 1903 Little Black Baby [w/Louise Armstrong    Bristol] 1904 Maple Leaf Rag Song [w/Sydney Brown] 1905 Sarah Dear [4]	1906 Good Bye Old Gal, Good Bye [Mac    Darden/H. Carroll Taylor] [5] 1907 Snoring Sampson [Harry La Mertha] [5] When Your Hair is Like the Snow    [w/Owen Spendthrift] 1910 Pine Apple Rag Song [w/Joe Snyder] 1911 Lovin' Babe [Al R. Turner] [5]    4. w/Henry Jackson    5. arr. by Scott Joplin
Known Lost Works
1901 A Blizzard 1903 A Guest of Honor: Opera     Dude's Parade     Patriotic Patrol     Song/Inst based on Antoinette 1905 You Stand Good With Me, Babe	c.1915? Morning Glories For the Sake of All Syncopated Jamboree (Stage Presentation) Pretty Pansy Rag Recitative Rag c.1916? If (Musical Comedy) Symphony No. 1 Piano Concerto
Piano Rolls
4/1916 Maple Leaf Rag [Connorized 10256] Magnetic Rag [Connorized 10266] 5/1916 Weeping Willow [Connorized 10277] Something Doing [Connorized 10278] Pleasant Moments [Connorized 10319] 6/1916 Maple Leaf Rag [Uni-Record melody 202705] Ole Miss Rag [by W.C. Handy] [Connorized 10304]

     Scott Joplin, who was dubbed "The King of Ragtime Writers" early in his composing career, earned the title through diligence, innovation, and sheer talent. Although he was not entirely responsible for helping lower many of the barriers that stood between black composers and success, Joplin was a leader in this regard, if a passive one.
     He was born in eastern Texas near Linden. The true birth date is unknown, and the common one of November 24 1868 was suggested by his last wife Lottie, although it was likely between July 19. 1867 (the day after the 1870 Census listing him as 2 years old) and mid-January of 1868 according to historian and Joplin biographer Ed Berlin. The June, 1880 Census lists him as 12 years old, further reinforcing this probability, and the 1900 Census lists him with an October birth date, although in 1872, a curiosity for certain.
     Scott Joplin grew up in the uncertain era of reconstruction. His father, Giles Joplin (sometimes spelled Jiles), was a slave that was freed before the Civil War, and his mother, Florence, was freeborn. During Scott's first few years, his parents worked as tenant farmers. As the family grew, his father got a job with the railroad in Texarkana, and his mother took up house cleaning. Both parents were musical, and Scott learned to play the banjo at an early age. His obvious musical talent earned him offers from area piano teachers to tutor him for free. By the age of 12 he was competent at both interpreting and writing music. His father left home around that time to take up residence with another woman, but stayed minimally involved to some extent in Scott's life. He appears in the 1880 Census still with the family as a common laborer so he may have left within the year. The same record shows Florence and oldest son Monroe working as well, with Scott and Robert in school. The youngest Joplin, Johnny, is only 3 months old when the Census was taken in mid June. The Scott helped his mother raise his siblings, but always followed his passion for music. There are suggestions by Ed Berlin that during his mid to late teens he spent some time in Sedalia, likely with a relative, but came back at some point to Texarkana. Around age 19 or 20 he left home for good.
     Scott spent the next few years as an itinerant pianist, developing his own style while absorbing influences of other Midwest musicians. He spent a great deal of time based in St. Louis, and went to the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition (World's Fair) in 1893. It was here that ragtime music, then in its infancy, was most likely heard by the public, and by many other musicians as well for the first time. After the fair, Joplin formed various bands and singing groups, including the Texas Medley Quartette which featured his two of his younger brothers, Robert and Will. After spending a little more time in St. Louis, Joplin settled for a time in Sedalia, Missouri in 1897, a move that would change his life. Already a published composer with some songs to his credit, he attended the George R. Smith College (founded to encourage higher education for African Americans) to further his musical knowledge. It was possibly there that he learned how to more accurately notate syncopation, a necessity for correctly writing down his ragtime compositions for others to play. Joplin performed in many area venues during this time both as a solo performer and with varying sizes of groups playing either piano or cornet. It was while working in one of these venues in 1899, the short-lived Maple Leaf Club, that he allegedly became involved with one of his greatest champions, publisher John Stark, and at the very least where he found the name for his first truly inspired rag.
     Stark was impressed enough by Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag that he quickly published it, giving the composer a royalty (.01¢ per copy), which was unusual at this time, more so since Joplin was a black composer working with a white publisher. Since it was likely a lawyer friend of Joplin's that helped make the contact with Stark and drew up the contract, it may have been a mutually agreed upon point that not only provided protection for both parties, but would eventually alter Joplin's financial well-being, allowing him to spend more time composing. Stark further encouraged Joplin to bring him more compositions, of which the collaborative Sunflower Slow Drag may have been submitted around the same time. The Maple Leaf was nearly an instant hit locally, and over the next two decades became the first piano rag to reportedly sell a million copies, although when that mark was reached is unclear. Although the relationship between Stark and Joplin would often be strained over much of the next 18 years, the publisher always promoted Joplin's works as the finest in his catalog. Those periods of animosity between them are in part demonstrated by name of varying publishers at the bottom of each new Joplin rag.
     In the 1900 Census Joplin is listed as a musician, with his birthday curiously put down as October of 1872, and his age as 27. He was lodging in the home of Susan H. Hankins, who was also hosting Belle Hayden Jones, the recently widowed sister-in-law of one of his young students, Scott Hayden. Just before he moved to St. Louis in 1901, Joplin (as some evidence suggests) possibly married Belle, and it may have also been a common-law marriage. The year of 1902 found Joplin at odds with Stark over publication of an extended rag ballet intended for stage or social events, which had evidently been performed as early as 1900 in Sedalia. Stark grudgingly published this long version of The Ragtime Dance, which had been orchestrated and performed in St. Louis as well by this time, due largely to the prompting of his daughter Eleanor, but it did poorly as Stark expected. Still, with profits from the other rags in his catalog, John Stark was able to open a music store and publishing plant in St. Louis, and eventually an office New York for a few years. Joplin wrote an early ragtime opera finished in 1903 called A Guest of Honor (likely based on a formal visit to the Roosevelt White House by Booker T. Washington), and toured with it briefly in the late summer and fall of 1903. Although no score has been re-discovered, remnants potentially remain in the form of a rag and march, and some titles are known at the very least. Joplin and Belle had been at odds for some time in St. Louis. After they had a baby girl that died at two months, the couple became estranged. Belle later moved from St. Louis and lived until 1930 or so.
     At some point after the money-losing Guest of Honor tour, Joplin spent up to a few months in Chicago before returning to St. Louis. By the time the 1904 World's Fair opened in late April, he was probably back in Sedalia for a time. Sometime during this period he met a 19 year-old in Little Rock that had capture his heart. He married Freddie Alexander, who he had dedicated the first printing of the Chrysanthemum to, in late June, and traveled with her back to Sedalia, playing concerts along the way. However, as soon as the reached Sedalia in July, Freddie was confined to bed for a cold that developed into pneumonia, and which took her life in early September. This started a period of compositional malaise and possibly depression for the composer, who soon moved back to St. Louis. Subsequent printings of Chrysanthemum also had the dedication removed. By this time, John Stark had set up shop in New York in an effort to compete with larger publishers who were putting out ragtime inferior (his staunch belief) to what was in his catalog. Joplin eventually followed Stark to New York in 1907, never to return to the Midwest.
     Some of Joplin's best-developed works are from the period 1907 to 1910, and they demonstrate the versatility of classic ragtime as well as a variety of textures that could be achieved within that framework. It was during this time that he met and allegedly married Lottie Stokes, although even approximate dates for this are unclear. He appears in the April 1910 Census as a musician and composer in Manhattan, plus widowed as would be consistent with the loss of Freddie. The wedding date of June of that year, as reported by Brun Campbell, would be most consistent with the time line, but inconsistent with other factors, such as her using her maiden name on a legal document in 1913. They were possibly never formally married, but she does appear as Lottie Joplin starting with the 1920 Census. There is some possibility that Lottie, born and raised in Washington DC, was married before she moved to Manhattan to run her boarding house, which would explain why she is hard to locate before 1913 when the two obviously were in a close relationship.
     Joplin continued work on a project that had been in his mind for many years and would consume much of the rest of his life. He believed so much in his syncopated opera Treemonisha that he put everything he had into it, both emotionally and financially. Funding and support was hard to come by because so many investors were involved with Broadway shows offering more popular music, and those investing in opera were going for proven projects. Treemonisha, a story ahead of its time as it involves female leadership and has a strong message of education as a way to gain respect and equal rights among all men, ultimately had only one performance for potential investors in 1911 with Joplin playing in place of an orchestra and a bare stage set. (Treemonisha was successfully staged for the first time as originally intended in 1972 with a full scale re-orchestrated presentation in 1975 by the Houston Grand Opera).
     Emotionally discouraged and mentally affected by the onset of syphilis, Joplin spent his remaining years, particularly 1915 on, slowly deteriorating physically and suffering from the onset of dementia. In early 1916 he did manage at least two different sessions where he recorded a handful of piano rolls, including Maple Leaf Rag, W.C. Handy's Ole Miss Rag, and his waltz Pleasant Moments. All but one of these are not accurate indicators of how he would have been playing at that time since they were obviously edited for timing and other errors. The exception is one of his Maple Leaf Rag performances which is uneven and halting at times, but it may have also been edited to some extent. Without an audio recording it is hard to determine exactly how he played, and between even 1914 and 1916 there would have been some significant differences. Joplin finally succumbed to the disease on April 1, 1917, six weeks after having been committed to Bellevue Hospital. Lottie Joplin long regretted not fulfilling her husband's insistent request that the Maple Leaf Rag be played at his funeral. Nonetheless, his music remains an inherent part of American music history, and his contributions to not just Black Americans but to all Americans are long lasting.
     As for what happened to some of Joplin's remaining papers and works, including some unpublished manuscripts, has also long been somewhat of a mystery. This includes the status of A Guest of Honor, but also some unfinished rags or songs. It is reported that historian Rudi Blesh saw some of them when visiting Lottie during his interviews in 1949 for They All Played Ragtime, and he jotted down some of the titles, many shown in the listings included here. The status of that box of papers since then is unknown, but speculations vary from being stolen to being accidentally left out in the trash to simply having been acquired by a new building owner who may have disposed of them not knowing what was there. The most significant discovery after his death was of Silver Swan Rag, which existed only in piano roll form. The initial copy found in the late 1960s was not properly credited, but once the news was out that it may be a Joplin roll, other copies surfaced with the proper attribution. New information does pop up from time to time, but the bulk of what we know about Joplin's life has likely been found by now, one of the best collections being detailed in King of Ragtime by Dr. Edward Berlin. But many discoveries remain for future generations, perhaps in new ways to interpret his pieces, and perhaps other writings that have not yet surfaced.

     Much of the best and most accurate information about Scott Joplin can be found in the well-researched and compelling book King of Ragtime by Dr. Edward Berlin, which can be found on my Books on Ragtime page. If you have any interest in Joplin or ragtime music, then it should be in your library as well.

James Sylvester Scott (February 12, 1885 to August 30, 1938)
Ragtime Compositions
1903 A Summer Breeze The Fascinator 1904 On The Pike Calliope Rag (c.1904) 1906 Frog Legs Rag 1907 Kansas City Rag 1909 Great Scott Rag The Ragtime Betty Grace and Beauty Sunburst Rag 1910 Ophelia Rag Hilarity Rag 1911 Quality Rag Ragtime Oriole Princess Rag 1914 Climax Rag	1915 Evergreen Rag 1916 Prosperity Rag Honey Moon Rag 1917 Efficiency Rag Paramount Rag 1918 Rag Sentimental Dixie Dimples 1919 Troubadour Rag New Era Rag Peace And Plenty Rag 1920 Modesty Rag Pegasus 1921 Don't Jazz Me Rag Victory Rag 1922 Broadway Rag
Songs and Waltzes
1909 Valse Venice She's My Girl from Anaconda [1] Sweetheart Time [1] 1910 Heart's Longing: Waltz 1914 Suffragette Waltz Take Me Out to Lakeside [2]	1918 Springtime of Love: Waltz 1920 The Shimmie Shake [3]    1. w/C.R. Dumars    2. w/Ida Miller    3. w/Cleota Wilson

     James Sylvester Scott (Jr.) was the only major ragtime composer to grow up in southwestern Missouri, primarily in the Carthage area. Born in Missouri, he was one of six children of former slave James Scott from North Carolina and his younger wife Molly Scott from Texas. James and showed strong musical talent at an early age. His first musical exposure was from his untrained mother, but soon James received some early training in theory and sight-reading from a respected Neosho pianist, as well as private lessons in his teens with a black Carthage music teacher, John Coleman. Perfect pitch and an innate sense of harmony helped speed along his comprehension and training. During a brief period of a year or so when the family lived in Kansas, the only instrument young James had to practice on was a reed organ. When his family moved back to Missouri, his father finally procured a piano. The Scott family was shown living in Neosho, near Carthage, in 1900. Most of his siblings also showed similar musical talent, but did not pursue music as a career. James is listed as a day laborer at age 15. They would soon move to Carthage.
     One of Scott's first jobs was as a bootblack for a Carthage barber. At age 16, he obtained one of his first performance jobs at Lakeside Park, a trolley park about halfway between Carthage and Joplin, playing both piano and calliope, and sometimes sitting in on sets performed by other area bands. He was soon working for Dumars Music Store owned by local bandleader Charles Dumars in Carthage, doing cleaning work and picture framing. Mr. Dumars quickly discovered Scott's musical abilities and allowed him to demonstrate tunes, the advent of which brought into the store many curious customers resulting in increased sheet music sales. Dumars eventually helped publish some of Scott's own compositions as well as those co-written with others. During this time James composed some songs and his first three rags. It is notable that Carthage, unlike many local towns, had very few drinking establishments or other forms of adult entertainment. As a result, unlike many other musicians of the time, James did not have to play in saloons or brothels to make a living. In 1904, shortly after the publication of his ragtime tribute to the St. Louis Exposition, On the Pike, Scott shared a concert with John W. "Blind" Boone, who took a liking to the youth, and even played with him some at Dumars during the visit.
     In 1906 he met Scott Joplin in St. Louis, who helped arrange the publication of his Frog Legs Rag with John Stark. Joplin may have also had some ancillary affect on James since the complexity and variety of his compositions soon expanded. Frog Legs Rag was enough of a success, second only to Maple Leaf Rag in the catalog, that Stark published virtually anything that Scott sent to him over most of the next two decades. It seems that Joplin and Scott met only once or twice, and did not have any evident ongoing relationship once Joplin moved to New York City. James also formed the Carthage Jubilee Singers which did local concerts, and played for the movies at the Delphus Theater in town. There is a chance that during this period he may have been acquainted with fellow Carthage white composer Clarence Woods, as they had taken from the same piano teacher, and Woods also played for movies and local concerts until he moved to Texas for a while.
     It was also in 1906, with the income from his Dumars job and his rags, that James bought a house in Carthage and married Miss Nora Johnson (or Norah). The couple never had children. While John Stark was off in New York City from 1906 to 1910, Scott continued to submit consistently fine pieces to him, most of which were quickly published. He is listed in Carthage in 1910 as a musician and piano salesman by trade. Scott continued to work for Dumars until 1914 before turning to performing and teaching full time. In 1918 he and Norah moved to Kansas City, Missouri, then later a bit west to Kansas City, Kansas, where he would spend the rest of his life. Most of his work was actually on the Missouri side of Kansas City. In 1920 he is listed as a theater musician, and Norah as an entertainment cateress. Scott taught piano in a studio he set up in Kansas City, and soon purchased a grand piano, which he said was his most prized possession. He played in some of the movie houses for a time as a soloist, in particular at a long-term position at the Panama Theater. Scott later worked with a seven piece band that he formed, writing most of the arrangements, and sometimes accompanying local blues singer Ada Brown, a cousin of his. Due to his diminutive height (5'4") and musical vigor, he was referred to as "the little professor."
     The increasing complexity of Scott's later rags demonstrate his considerable pianistic skills. His love of the genre was clearly demonstrated in one of his last published rags, Don't Jazz Me, (I'm Music), although that rag, like most of his pieces submitted without titles, was likely named by John Stark or his staff. Stark in particular was frustrated with the onslaught of loose (by the standards of that time period) jazz music, and the title of this ironically somewhat jazzy piece was one of his final editorials on the passing of classic ragtime. A steady playing job at the black-owned Eblon Theater with his band was sidelined by economic troubles, but he was able to retain his position when the band was replaced by a theater organ, as Scott was also quite capable at that instrument. In 1930 Scott's wife died, as did a continuing career playing for the movies due to the advent of synchronized sound films. Towards the end of his life he was in continuously poor health, but kept composing, and moving, reportedly living in four residences between 1931 and 1938. Until 1936 his primary income was from teaching. He finally succumbed to kidney failure in 1938. Some of his final works remain unpublished or even undiscovered.
     Ragtime performer and promoter Bob Darch told of his efforts to find Scott's burial place in the 1950s, which included a mild alcoholic bribe to the groundskeeper, only to find the cemetery overgrown, Scott's spot poorly marked, and in overall sad condition. Since then many Kansas City rag enthusiasts made an effort to honor their adopted composer with a new headstone, and his site is now well kept and often visited. Fortunately ragtime did not die with him, and the vivacity of James Scott pieces will long be enjoyed by new generations of rag enthusiasts.

It should be noted that the author's family was long based in Carthage, and grandfather Paul Scroggs had some memory of hearing ragtime played there in his youth. Some of the research on Scott was done on site in the 1980s and 1990s during family visits to Carthage and Jasper Missouri.

Joseph Francis Lamb (December 6, 1887 to September 3, 1960)
Ragtime Compositions
1903 Walper House Rag 1905 Ragged Rapids Rag c.1907 Hyacinth - A Rag Greased Lightning (c.1907/1959) Rapid Transit (c.1907/1959) 1908 Rag-Time Special (c.1908/1959) Joe Lamb's Old Rag (c.1908/1959) Sensation Rag Dynamite Rag 1909 Ethiopia Rag Excelsior Rag 1910 Champagne Rag 1912 Spanish Fly 1913 American Beauty Rag 1914 Chasin' The Chippies 1915 Contentment Rag Ragtime Nightingale	1915 (Cont) Cleopatra Rag Reindeer 1916 Top Liner Rag Patricia Rag 1919 Bohemia Rag c.1959 Brown Derby #2 The Alaskan Rag The Beehive Rag The Jersey Rag Ragtime Reverie (19??) From Ragtime Treasures (©1964):    Alabama Rag    Arctic Sunset    Bird Brain Rag    Blue Grass Rag    Chimes of Dixie    Cottontail Rag    Firefly Rag    Good and Plenty Rag    Hot Cinders    The Old Home Rag    Ragtime Bobolink    Thoroughbred Rag    Toad Stool Rag
Songs, Marches and Waltzes
1901 Mignonne-Valse Lente 1902 Muskoka Falls-Indian Idyl     [w/Bill Edwards - 2006] 1903 Le Premier-March Golden Leaves-Waltzes 1904 Lorne Scots on Parade My Queen of Zanzibar 1905 Celestine Waltzes Florida The Lilliputians' Bazaar 1906 Sourdough March Red Feather - March Florentine: Valse 1907 Symphonic Syncopations (c.1907) The Lost Letter 1908 Sunset-A Ragtime Serenade Sweet Nora Doone [1] 1908 The Engineer's Last Good-Bye [1] I'm Jealous of You [1] She Doesn't Flirt [1] Somewhere a Broken Heart [2]     [w/Samuel A. White] In the Shade of the Maple by the     Gate [2] [w/Ruth Dingman]	1908 (Cont) Dear Blue Eyes: True Eyes [4] If Love is a Dream Let Me Never     Awake [4] Love's Ebb Tide [4] Three Leaves of Shamrock on the     Watermelon Vine [3] 1909 Gee, Kid! But I Like You The Homestead Where the Suwanee     River Flows Love in Absence [w/Mary A. O'Reilly] 1910 I Love You Just the Same [5] My Fairy Iceberg Queen [5] Playmates [w/Will Wilander] 1913 The Ladies' Aid Song [1] I Want to Be a Bird-Man [6] I'll Follow the Crowd to Coney [6] 1930 Purple Moon [7] So Here We Are [7] 1960 Since You Took Your Heart Away    1. as Harry Moore    2. as Earl West    3. as J. Lamb and H. Moore    4. w/Lynn Wood    5. w/Murray Wood    6. w/Mrs. G. Satterlee    7. w/Gus Collins

     Joe Lamb was born of emigrant Irish Catholic parents in Montclair, New Jersey. One of four children of James and Julia Lamb, including older siblings James Jr., Catherine and Annostesia, he was schooled early on by his father in the carpentry trade. At eight, he received some informal lessons, the only real training he ever got from his older sisters who were both promising keyboard instrument players. He also engaged in learning from the popular Etude magazine of the day, which featured many classical works and some light popular pieces.
     At the age of thirteen, Joe's father died, and he was sent to St. Jerome's College in Ontario for some engineering training. However, he could not keep the music bug out of his system, and started composing. Most of these early pieces were non-ragtime, but they were published in Toronto under the name of Josef F. Lamb during the first few years of the new century. One of the earliest, Muskoka Falls, was started when he was fourteen (finished by the author in 2006), an obvious response to Charles Daniels' enormously popular Hiawatha of 1902. It referred to a recreational resort area for the rich a bit north of Toronto. At one point the dormitory at the school was unavailable for a time, so he boarded at the Walper House in Kitchener, 50 or so miles west of Toronto, about which he wrote one of his earliest rags.
     After he got a job at age 16, Joe never returned to school, and eventually ended up working for a publishing house in New York City. Then came his fateful meeting with his idol, Scott Joplin. According to Lamb, he was in the publishing office of John Stark purchasing some of Joplin's more recent works in early 1908. Before leaving, he vocalized his wish to meet the master at some point, and the clerk pointed to a man with one leg wrapped up sitting across the room. "There he is." Lamb was enthralled, and after the accolades of admiration told Joplin that he had been writing ragtime too. So Joplin arranged for Lamb to play the rag for him, Sensation, that evening at a gathering. By the time Lamb finished his performance the room full of Joplin's friends had gone quiet. The Joplin said, "That sounded like a good colored rag," which is exactly what Lamb had wanted to hear. So Joplin arranged to have Sensation published by Stark, who published pretty much anything Lamb sent him from that point on.
     Lamb is listed in 1910 as living with Catherine and his mother Julia, but his profession is that of a clerk for what may be a music publisher. He was first married in 1911, when he moved to Brooklyn from Montclair. He had a ragtime orchestra for a brief time, and did some arranging, but certainly turned in some of the best ragtime pieces ever written during the 1910's. In 1914 he got a day job with a financing organization, and from that point on music was a serious hobby. His first wife, Henrietta, died near the end of the great WWI flu pandemic in 1920, leaving him with Joseph F. Lamb Jr. In 1920 he is listed not as a musician, but as a Bank Office Manager. Just the same, he was still composing, even if only to follow his own passion.
     Joe married his second wife, Amelia, in 1922. They moved to a house in Brooklyn where he would live for the rest of his life. Around this time he was contacted to write a novelty piano piece for Mills Music. The submission, titled Hot Cinders, was not published until after Lamb's death, but it stands up well to other novelties of the day. The Lambs are shown in 1930 as a family of six, including Joe Jr., Patricia, Richard and Robert. At this time he was a manger for an importing firm.
     In the late 1940's when They All Played Ragtime was first released, the whereabouts of Lamb were unknown by the authors, Harriet Janis and Rudi Blesh. However, Lamb knew right where he was, as did others who read the book. He retired from his financial career in 1957, a little after the time of his "rediscovery". It was then that he took a number of rags out of mothballs that had been composed from the late 1910's to present recent ones, and played them into a tape recorder on two different occasions for posterity, once for a young Mike Montgomery, then for historian Sam Charters, the latter released on vinyl in the 1970s. He even performed for his first and only professional gig at Club 76 in Toronto in late 1959 through the efforts of Bob Darch, John Arpin and others.
     After a brief flurry of fame and widespread admiration, Joseph Lamb succumbed to a heart attack at home in 1960. Many of the unpublished rags were finally put into print in 1964, adding to a great legacy of the potential beauty of ragtime realized for all of us, although they have now been out of print since the early 1990s. Fortunately, many other rags and interesting songs spanning his entire career were published, many for the first time, in 2005 through the efforts of his daughter Patricia Lamb-Conn and performer Sue Keller of Ragtime Press in Chicago, followed by Sue's premier recordings of many of these works, and the author's own completion of yet another one of them. Joseph Lamb is clearly never to be forgotten.

     I would like to add a personal note of thanks to Lamb's surviving daughter Patricia Lamb-Conn, ragtime performer/publisher Sue Keller and researcher Ted Tjaden, who variously provided additional family information and background along with discoveries and printing of many previously unknown Lamb pieces, some of which were still surfacing in 2006.

Artie Matthews (November 15, 1888 to October 25, 1958)
Compositions	Arrangements
1908 Give Me, Dear, Just One More Chance     [w/Ford Hayes] 1912 Twilight Dreams [1] Wise Old Moon [1] Everybody Makes Love to Someone     [w/P. Franzi] Waiting [w/Emma Ettienne] 1913 Lucky Dan, My Gamblin' Man [2] When I'm Gone [2] The Princess Prance [2] Old Oak Tree by the Wayside     [w/T. Hilbren Schaefer] Pastime Rag #1 Pastime Rag #2 1915 Weary Blues Weary Blues (Song) [3] 1916 Pastime Rag #3 Everything He Does Just Pleases Me 1918 Pastime Rag #5 1920 Pastime Rag #4 c.1940 A Caress [w/Mazie Earhart Clark]	1912 Baby Seals Blues    [Baby F. Seals] Well, If I Do, Don't You Let It Get Out    [Baby F. Seals] They Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dawg Aroun'    [Carrie Stark & Webb M. Oungst] 1913 Junk Man Rag    [Charles Luckeyth Roberts] 1914 Lily Rag    [Charles Thompson] Cataract Rag    [Robert Hampton] 1915 Agitation Rag    [Robert Hampton] Jinx Rag    [Lucian Porter Gibson] 1916 Cactus Rag    [Lucian Porter Gibson]    1. w/H. Inman    2. w/Charles A. Hunter    3. w/Mort Greene & George Cates

     Artie Matthews was born in Braidwood, Illinois, and much of his childhood was spent in nearby Springfield. His initial musical training came from his mother, and was supplemented by two local ragtime pianists. During the latter part of his teens he played in some of the bars and other public venues in Springfield. One of his first attempts to play in a large public venue was at the 1904 Lewis and Clark Exposition in St. Louis. However, the considerable competition presented by many forceful pianists there caused him to demur from this opportunity. Still, he wanted to perform ragtime well, and spent the next couple of years learning from Banty Morgan and Art Dunningham, two Springfield area players. With their help and his own talent, he got positions playing everywhere from street corners to Springfield drinking establishments and bordellos.
     Matthews moved to St. Louis during the height of the ragtime era, 1907, finding the environment to be much different after now that the Exposition was a memory, with less aggressive competition and more camaraderie among the pianists there. Artie was virtually immediately employed by famed composer and player Tom Turpin, who owned both the Rosebud Cafe and the Booker T. Washington Theater. It was here that he was able to hone his compositional and arranging skills, supplemented by formal training at the Keeton School of Music. In 1908 he wrote and published his earliest known surviving piece, Give Me, Dear, Just One More Chance one of the only songs he also wrote lyrics for. He is also reported to have met Jelly Roll Morton as the still lesser-known pianist roared through town in 1911.
     In the summer of 1912, Matthews became the second composer to arrange and publish a true blues song with "blues" in the title, the Baby Seals Blues, composed by St. Louis pianist "Baby" F. Seals as part of his vaudeville act with (first name not known) Fisher. This publication beat out W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues (originally Mister Crump) by just a few weeks. He also worked out Well, If I Do, Don't You Let It Get Out for the team that same year. During a later visit to Cincinnati Matthews met up and coming Harlem pianist Charles Luckeyth Roberts, and did the first known arrangement of his Junk Man Rag, a more formal sounding one than the more commonly heard Will Tyers arrangement. Back in St. Louis, Turpin put Artie to work for a season at his Booker T. Washington Theater, and Matthews worked also at Barrett's Theatorium and the Princess Roadhouse, composing works specifically for revues and shows at each venue. Sadly, many of these were commonly considered disposable properties in the theater at that time, and only titles exist for most of them now. Three of them did get published by the Princess management in 1913, following three songs Matthews had published on his own in 1912.
     Word of Artie's talents spread and it eventually made its way to pioneer ragtime publisher John Stark. Stark hired him as a principal arranger for his firm, and he helped create numerous classic rags from sketches by their original composers. Stark reportedly then offered Matthews $50 outright for each rag he composed. Matthews eventually turned in five masterpieces, the Pastime Rags, all believed to have been written from around 1912 to 1913. All had very unique elements that set them apart from other rags of the time, including creative stop time sections, tone cluster, walking bass lines, and advanced Latin rhythm integration. Several of these elements found in the Pastime Rags are also obvious in the arrangements he did of other composer's works, especially those for Robert Hampton and Lucian Porter Gibson. In 1915, Stark offered another $50 for any composer who could write a rag to compete with Handy's instantly popular St. Louis Blues. Matthews came through with the Weary Blues, which was so successful that Stark gave him $27 extra just to buy a new suit. This was a very impressive commendation for that time. Weary Blues was well covered and kept in standard jazz repertoire over the next couple of decades, forecasting Boogie Woogie among other styles. He brought out one more song with a different publisher in 1916, Everything He Does Just Pleases Me, then all but abandoned ragtime and popular music.
     In 1916 Matthews left St. Louis for Chicago where he spent some time peripherally in the music scene, also playing organ for the Berea Presbyterian Church. It was here he became reacquainted with classical music, particularly Bach and other baroque composers who had created hymn tunes. This further codified his desire to separate himself and his music from the environment in which black ragtime had traditionally been composed and performed in. About a year later Artie moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he would spend much of the rest of his life. He is listed on his 1917 draft card as a "choirmaster" at an Episcopal church. Soon after he would meet and marry Miss Anna Howard. In an effort to offer the African American population there opportunities to advance where none had existed, the couple opened the Cosmopolitan School of Music in 1921. This became the first conservatory of its kind in the country, perhaps the world, being owned by African Americans yet focusing on all forms of music, encouraging young black performers to embrace more than just ragtime and blues. He spent most of the rest of his days offering quality music education to minorities, many which went on well prepared for a career in music. Artie also worked with many Cincinnati churches as a choir director and organist, and with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as an arranger. He continued to compose, though more in the formats of jazz fused with classical and religious music. The best known of these works is the cantata Ethiopia. Matthews was also active in challenging segregation laws and any other areas where race equality was challenged. In 1938 he received an honorary doctoral degree from Central State University as acknowledgement of his great community service. He died just short of his 70th birthday.
     Dr. Artie Matthews' musical and personal legacy goes far beyond the Pastime Rags. This includes the work continued by his soon Art Matthews who is also an accomplished traditional and electronic musician and teacher. Still, the Pastime Rags and his arranged rags remain as among the finest works of the Ragtime Era, and rate (with this author) as works equal to those of the other three greats, Scott Joplin, Joseph Lamb and James Scott.

     I would like to add a personal note of thanks to Art Matthews, Artie's son, who helped me obtain information and materials in relation to his extraordinary father.

Scott Hayden (March 31, 1882 to September 16, 1915)
Compositions
c.1898 Pear Blossoms 1901 Sunflower Slow Drag [1] 1903 Something Doing [1]	1911 Felicity Rag [1] 1913 Kismet Rag [1]    1. w/Scott Joplin

     Scott Hayden's story is one of the unfortunately common ones of great potential only scantly realized. He was one of the few classic rag composers actually born where ragtime was informally launched, Sedalia, Missouri. The son of Marcus(?) Hayden and Julia Hayden, Scott was fully schooled up through graduation from Lincoln High School, which he attended with another future collaborator of Scott Joplin, Arthur Marshall. He was 17 or 18 when he made the acquaintance of Joplin, who ended up as a tutor and mentor for piano ragtime for both of the youngsters. Although Hayden had already written one unpublished rag (Pear Blossoms which was later completed by ragtime performer and promoter Bob Darch), it was Joplin who was able to take his skill as a pianist and divert it into compositions. Together they collaborated on four rags, which are still among the more memorable pieces in the Joplin catalog. He was shown on the 1900 census as Scottie Hayden, living with his parents and younger sister, also named Julia.
     When Joplin moved to St. Louis in 1901, he either married or became a common-law husband to Hayden's recently widowed sister-in-law Belle Hayden. Scott Hayden also married, and with his bride Nora Wright, followed the Joplins to St. Louis where they lodged with together. It is likely here that the final three Joplin/Hayden collaborations took shape, although two would not be published for many years. Around 1903, Nora died while giving birth to their daughter. Since there are no known Hayden compositions written past this point, it may be surmised that her death had a serious impact on Hayden, and his life started to deteriorate from this point on. The 1911 and 1913 releases from publishe John Stark composed in conjunction with Joplin had likely been submitted by 1903, and were simply released during a time when Stark needed some new Joplin material in his catalog.
     Hadyen left the Joplin residence for Chicago where many other ragtime figures were heading to its burgeoning music scene. It is reported that Scott was a very adept pianist, so that he did not make it in Chicago may have been a matter of timing, as the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also known as the 1904 World's Fair, briefly became the center of ragtime shortly after he moved away from there. There may have been another marriage in the interim, as a Scot Hayden with identical parental and age demographics is listed in Chicago in 1910 as a baker (possibly a second job), with a Missouri-born wife named Maggie who he married in 1908, the second marriage for both of them. This is the only black Scott Hayden in Chicago in that census, further bolstering the case for credibility of this find. Hayden married once again after 1910, this time to Jeanette Wilkins.
     Scott eventually found work as an elevator operator in the Cook County Hospital in Chicago (where the NBC television show E.R. takes place) and remained in this position for much of the last few years of his short life, which ended in pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three. No post-St. Louis compositions have been found, suggesting such possibilities as depression or frustration about his life, or the lack of influence of the more grounded senior composer that Joplin had on him. Still, the surviving works display great vitality and originality, with an intricate understanding of syncopation, development, and enjoyment in music.

Arthur O. Marshall (November 20, 1881 to August 18, 1968)
Compositions
1900 Swipesy Cakewalk [1] 1906 Kinklets 1907 Lily Queen [1] Missouri Romp (c.1907) 1908 Ham And! The Peach The Glory of the Cubs [w/F.R. Sweirgen] The Pippin Rag 1949 Silver Arrow Rag	1950 National Prize Rag c.1966 Century Prize Silver Rocket 1974 (Posth) I'll Wait Until My Dream Girl Comes     Again 1976 (Posth) Little Jack's Rag 1980 (Posth) The Miracle of a Birth    [1] w/Scott Joplin

     Arthur Marshall grew up in the same environment as another future collaborator with Scott Joplin, Scott Hayden. Yet his story is quite different from that of his Lincoln High School classmate. He was born on a farm in Saline County, Missouri. The 1900 Census shows an 1880 birth date, his 1917 draft card 1882, and later Census records point to 1883. However, 1881 is most commonly accepted and is more accurate than the later dates. It also appears on his death certificate and Social Security record. Arthur was shown as a porter in a Sedalia barber shop in 1900, possibly a shoe shiner. His mother Emily Marshall was a washerwoman, and his illiterate father Edward Marshall had no discernible career, yet they did own their home.
     When Joplin first arrived in Sedalia, Missouri, he sought lodging with the Marshall family. Arthur had already taken some private lesson in classical music years before, and was versed with piano technique and a gift for syncopation. Joplin collaborated with his new protégé on Swipesy Cakewalk, the only rag with Joplin's name on it in 1900. Joplin also helped get the young pianist a job at the now-famous Maple Leaf Club during its single year of existence in 1899, and encouraged him to attend the George R. Smith College where Joplin himself had attended in pursuit of a music degree. Marshall went even further, gaining experience in music theory, and eventually graduating from the Teacher's Institute with a teaching license. Whether Arthur actually pursued a career in teaching is unclear, but he did have a good career as a performer.
     Marshall had worked his way through school playing ragtime in public venues and for dances and special occasions. He also went where the work was, in the brothels, where substantial tips regularly exceeded his standard pay by a great deal. While still in college, he joined McCabe's Minstrels playing for intermissions for nearly two years. Prior to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Marshall had moved to the growing city and joined with Scott Hayden in Joplin's short-lived Drama Company which briefly toured Joplin's opera A Guest of Honor. At least two mentions in contemporary papers list either a Latisha or Letitia Marshall, one of a Mrs. Arthur Marshall, and a Letitia Howell, which points to the possibility that Marshall was briefly married, or even posing as married to this cast member. If this is a fact, they were not married for very long. After the tour folded in the Fall of 1903, Marshall became a fixture in Tom Turpin's Rosebud Saloon as well. It was in St. Louis that he married Maude McMannes, possibly his second of four wives. During the exposition, and frequently for years after in St. Louis, there were wicked cutting contest where pianists would try to outplay each other, mostly in a friendly fashion. One of the best ways to get the upper hand was to have good material that the other pianist did not know, which as Marshall said, "caused them to write some pretty good rags." His reputation as both composer and pianist grew as a result of such contests.
     Leaving his wife Maude behind in St. Louis, Marshall ventured to Chicago in 1906 to seek new opportunities where many of his colleagues had gone before him. There he met and married Julia Jackson with whom he had three children, two girls and one boy. When Chicago did not turn up the wealth of work he had hoped for, Marshall moved back first to Sedalia then to St. Louis in 1910. He was shown living again with his mother, brother and sister-in-law, and his wife Julia in Sedalia in April 1910, working as barber and engaged in "odd jobs." Back in St. Louis later that year he entered one of the major contests at the Booker T. Washington Theatre run by the Turpin family. Marshall won the top prize ($5.00) and went to work at the Eureka, and later the Moonshine Gardens.
     After Julia died in childbirth in 1916, Arthur stayed in St. Louis at least another year. He is shown on his 1917 draft record as a waiter at the Buckingham Hotel, and lists his mother, Emily, as still living in the area as well. Marshall moved to Kansas City late in the year and retired from playing and composing, eventually marrying one last time to Odell Jackson, a Kansas City native. In 1920 he is shown working in a packing house. A decade later, he is listed as simply working "odd jobs" with Odell employed as a laundress, which was her family's profession before they were married. He saw some fame again after the first ragtime book They All Played Ragtime in 1950, and particularly through the efforts of "Ragtime Bob" Darch who put Marshall out in front of the public again as a performer. Three of his last five compositions were printed in the third and fourth editions of They All Played Ragtime. He also had great opportunity to perform at the first few ragtime festivals held over the next 18 years. Marshall died at 87 in 1968.

     Acknowledgement needs to be extended to Klaus and Hans Pehl, German researchers, who uncovered the information about Letitia/Latisha Marshall, and Dr. Ed Berlin for conveying that information to the ragtime community.

Charles Leslie Johnson (December 3, 1875 to December 28, 1950)
Ragtime Compositions
1899 Scandalous Thompson Doc Brown's Cakewalk 1902 A Black Smoke 1906 Dill Pickles Rag 1907 Sneaky Peet Fine and Dandy Southern Beauties (aka Lovey Dovey) 1908 All The Money [1] Powder Rag [1] Beedle-Um-Bo [1] 1909 Silver King Rag Apple Jack, Some Rag Pansy Blossoms Pigeon Wing Rag Porcupine Rag Kissing Bug 1910 Under The Southern Moon Lady Slippers [1] Golden Spider	1911 Cloud Kisser [1] Melody Rag [1] Tar Babies Rag Barber Pole Rag Cum-Bac 1912 Hen Cackle Rag Swanee Rag 1913 Crazy Bone Rag 1914 Pink Poodle Honeysuckle: Tango/Two-Step Peek-A-Boo Rag 1915 Alabama Slide 1916 Blue Goose Rag [1] Teasing the Cat Fun on the Levee 1918 Snookums Rag 1928 Monkey Biznez - Novelty    1. As Raymond Birch
Songs, Waltzes, Intermezzos
1895 Crystal Schottische Esquimaux Wayside Willie's March 1896 Weary Walker's March 1898 Warwick Club March Gaytella Waltz 1899 It Takes a Coon to Do the Rag Time Dance     [w/Robert Penick] Hester On Parade Belle of Havana: Waltzes By the Winding Tennessee [w/Malcom     Nicolson] A Love Token Thelma Waltzes In Far Away Manila [w/James Noland] 1900 A Tally-Ho Party When Shall We Meet Again? {w/R.R.] 1901 With Fire and Sword 1902 The Blue Jay and The Squirrel 1904 A Whispered Thought: Novelette The Louisiana Purchase: March 1905 Iola - Intermezzo Good-Bye Susanna [4] 'Neath the Skies of California Far Away     [w/French] Bonnie Eyes of Brown and Blue [w/Robin     Reid] 1906 Iola - Song [w/James O'Dea] Dedication March My May Day Fortune [w/Cassandra] As the Soft Shades of Evening Fall [w/F.R.     Mungale] 1907 That Little Sunny Southern Girl of Mine     [w/J.E. Jeter] 1908 Fawn Eyes: Intermezzo Fairy Kisses Waltz Butterflies: Caprice The Harvest Hop: Barn Dance Charles L. Johnson's Barn Dance Dementia Americana With You [5] Alicia (Dream Name of my Dreamland Maid)     [w/John G. Winter] 1909 Sunbeam: Intermezzo Wedding of the Fairies Waltz Dixie Twilight Why Can't I Make a Hit? If I Only Had a Sweetheart [6] Tobasco: Rag-time Waltz 1910 Dill Pickles (Song) [w/Alfred Bryan] Heart Fancies: Waltzes Yankee Bird: March Little Star Won't You Twinkle [w/Tell     Taylor] The Blushing Rose: Serenade Woodlawn Waltzes Silver Star: Intermezzo French Auto Cylinder Oil Waltz [w/Anthony     D. Holthaus] Sweetheart [7] 1911 Silver Star (Song) [5] Queen of Fashion: Waltzes Lucy Lee [5] Someday You'll Love Me [5] When I Dream of You [5] Fifty Years Ago (When We Were Wed) [5] Sly Old Moon [5] The Girl for Me 1912 Golden Hours Henry's Slip'ry Slidin' Trombone Meet Me on the Santa Fe Trail [w/Jack Riley] I'm Goin', Goodbye, I'm Gone [1] School Life: March Meet Me Where the Shadows Fall My Dreamy Rose [5] Only a Faded Rosebud [5] When You and I Were Sweethearts Long Ago     [w/George H. McCrary] 1913 Shadow Time: Reverie Shadow Time: Song [9] When the Roses Fade Away [w/Martha B.     Thomas] Dream Days Ma Pickaninny Babe [1] Down By the Old Garden Gate [5] Lucinda's Ragtime Ball 1914 You're the Girl That I've Been Longing For [8] Summer Breezes: Waltzes	1914 (Cont) Dream On: Waltzes When You Dream of the Girl You Love Down Where the Trail Divides     [w/Reynolds & Larson] 1915 In the Hills of Old Kentucky (My Mountain     Rose) [9] I'll Be Waiting for You [9] When the War is Over [6] Cassandra Waltzes One Night in Mexico 1916 Doodle De Dum Golden Moon Croon Time [9] Dear Little Home Sweet Home 1917 I Like the Name of Dixie (But I Love My     Northern Home) [w/Hale Byers] I Never Thought I'd Miss You So (Until You     Went Away) [6] 1918 Rose of Tennessee [w/Frank Watkins] Beautiful Island of Dreams [4] Starlight Serenade Sweet Memories Waltz Be a Pilgrim (Not a Ram) [w/George Cordell] Our Yesterdays [2] [w/Francis Lake] 1919 Sweet and Low [8] Where the Lanterns Glow [8] Moonlit Waters: Reverie [2] 1920 Deep in My Heart, Beloved [7] Waltz Decembre [2] 1921 By the Silvery Nile [w/Jack Yellen] Wanda: Fox Trot 1922 Everybody Calls Her Sunshine [10] Colorado and You [10] Because You Answered Yes, Ejtedene [w/Alice     Richardson] Spanish Moon 1923 When Clouds Have Vanished and Skies Are     Blue [5] [w/F. Restor] 1924 Can You Bring Back the Heart I Gave You?[5] Spangles [2] 1925 I Want to See My Pickaninny (In the Heart of     Old Virginny) [w/Nellie Doud Allen] The Sweetheart Trail [w/Al Neal] Little Gray Mouse [3] American Cadet [3] Golden Slipper [3] Blue Bells [3] Whirlagig [3] Bungalow Town [3] Witching Moonlight: Waltz [3] Bobolink: Waltz [3] Cascade: Waltz [3] Tinkle Bells [3] 1927 Over the Old Back Fence 1929 My Missouri Cabin Happy Go Lucky Gal [w/Lee Turner &     Lotta Greene] 1930 Jubilee in the Sky [11] Come Back Tonight in My Dreams 1933 Drifting Along in a Lover's Dream [2] 1936 He's For Us All 1937 Bungalow Town [11] 1938 Ava-Jean [w/B. & W. Williamson] 1939 Carry Me On Old Pardner [w/Louis Bennett] In the Good Old U.S.A. 1940 March of the Air Cadets Good for Nothin' No-a-count [w/Bayard     Mosby] 1946 In the Old Doorway [12] My 'Loved Delaware [12]    1. As Raymond Birch    2. As Herbert Leslie    3. As Eugene Ballard    4. w/Milton G. Harsha    5. w/William R. Clay    6. w/Robert Spencer    7. w/Addison Madeira    8. w/James Stanley Royce    9. w/Royce as James Royce Shannon    10. w/Carson Jay Robison    11. w/Louis J. Bennett    12. w/Edgar Ponder Elzey
Unpublished Works
Across the Sands After the Rain Comes My Sunshine Annabella The Army, the Navy, and Marines Baby Doll Because I Love You So Cactus Pete Carlotta The Coppers on Parade The Cowboy's Lament Dance of the Midgets Dear Little Lady Dear Little Rose Desert Moon Dreamin' Tonight of My Darlin' Ev'ry-Thing I Do Seems Wrong Forgive and Forget Girls (1923) Go' Long Jasper Goin' Back to My Hometown in Sunny     Tennessee Good Morning Mr. Sunshine Graceful Gunner Bill Hand in Hand He's My Pappy High School March Hittin' the Trail Hold Me in Your Arms Hold Me in Your Arms Again Honey Don't Be Mean to Me Honolulu Lou I Got a Gal in Arkansaw "I Have No Name for This" (quote at the top     of the piece) I Love Somebody I Love the Ladies I Never Thought I'd Miss You So I Want a Man (not titled) I Wonder if You Ever Think of Me I'm a Ho-Bo (not titled) Idaho In the Cradle of the Rockies In the Twilight Glow It May Be Just a Notion (That's All) Jesus Will Welcome You Home Johnny Don't Be Mean to Me June Time [w/Eva Otis] Just a Quaint Old Melody Just a Sweet Old Melody Just You Keep Smiling and You Can't Go Wrong Let's Dream Back to the Day We Met Let's Paint the Old Town Red Lonesome Little Girl Love Mammy Jinny's Lullaby Maybe Meet Me By the Haystack, Sadie Memphis Buddy's Swing-Time Band     [w/Eva Johnson]	Midgets on Parade Mississippi Shore Missouri (three parts for male quartet) Mother's Arms My Arabian Rose My Heart's in Dixie Today My Old Home [2] Nancy Jane Oh You Man Old Glory On a Honeymoon (Just We Two) On Our Golden Wedding Day On the Banks of the Winding Tennessee One Kiss, and Then Goodnight Our Battle Song [6] Out in the Golden West Overture Packin' My Grip, Headin' for Home Pappy Don't Care for Onions Paradise Trail Peace to the World (Good Will Toward All) Ploddin' Along Roll Deep River Roll Roll on Brothers Rural Capers Send Me a Rose [2] She's Irish Snooty Little Cutie The Soldier's Farewell [w/Charles J. Hellinger] Somewhere Somewhere on the Deep Blue Sea Song of the Bride Song of the Soul Spooky Blues Steppin' On the Gas Sunshine and Moonlight Sweet Girl [2] Sweet Ida May That Jones Girl Tell Your Troubles to the Moon There Never Was, There'll Never Be Uncle Billy Untitled (Two different works without titles     or words) Up in the Air with Sally The Voice on the Radio Waltz (not titled) When I Found You When Mother Rocked Baby to Sleep When the Boys Come When the Frost is on the Clover When the Toot-Toot Toots for Memphis     Tennessee While I'm Away Why Did You Leave Me You Don't Want Me Around Anymore You, Just You (words and melody similar     to "Just You") You're the Sweetest Girl I Know

     Charles L. Johnson was born in Wyandotte, Kansas to James R. Johnson and Helen Elizabeth Johnson. Census records and his 1917 Draft card show him a year older than the commonly published 1876 date suggests, as does his WWI draft card. So he was most likely born in 1875 as the 1900 Census and his Draft card specifically claim. In 1880, James is shown to be a fisherman, and his wife a housekeeper. Wyandotte was eventually incorporated into Kansas City, so Kansas City, Kansa is considered his birth place by default.
     Charlie was attracted to the piano at a very early age, and his natural abilities encouraged his parents to buy him a piano when he was nine. He took formal study in classical music until his early teens, when popular music tugged at him continually. While studying Beethoven, little Charlie was also playing the hits of the day on the sly. This did not serve him well when his teacher, a Mr. Kreiser, became frustrated by these non-classical piano stylings, so Charlie quit. Johnson continued to learn, though, taking courses to better ground him in music theory and compositional skills, as well as picking up the banjo, guitar, violin, and mandolin, enabling him to play with small groups.
     Johnson lived his entire life in Kansas City, mostly on the Missouri side, which was the center of a great deal of ragtime activity. His earliest tunes were performed with small ensembles, but not published except for a handful. Working as a piano and music demonstrator for the J. W. Jenkins & Sons Company in Kansas City, Charles managed to get his foot in the composition door with a rag, Scandalous Thompson, published by Jenkins in 1899. This was closely followed by Doc Brown's Cake Walk the same year, a piece allegedly based on a local character who is pictured on the cover. Jenkins managed to get an arrangement of this to John Philip Sousa when he was in town, and that performance helped to make it fairly popular. He continued to get published, with a few songs and incidental piano solos appearing over the next couple of years. Johnson's first business cards and magazine advertisements indicate that he was in the music arrangement and commissioned composition business, in which he met limited success in the early years.
     Charles Johnson was married around 1901 to Sylvia (Hoskin) Johnson, and they soon had a daughter, Frances. In 1902, the Carl Hoffman firm for which he was now working published A Black Smoke, one of his more interesting folk rags. In 1905 he attempted to counter the popularity of his friend and fellow Kansas City composer Charles N. Daniels 1902 hit Hiawatha with a similar intermezzo of his own. Iola did do quite well, and the following year it was also made into a song as Hiawatha had been. Both pieces were named after towns in Kansas, not after Native American names or cultures, but the towns had got their names in that way so there was an indirect linkage. Iola became a point of controversy over three decades later in 1940 with the publication and recording of a big band piece called Playmates, much of which sounded very suspiciously like Johnson's tune. While some may have forgotten the piece by that time, the composer had not, and with current copyright owner Jerry Vogel he did battle against the Santly-Joy company which owned Playmates. By 1944, Johnson and Vogel received a settlement.
     It was in 1906 as Iola had lyrics added that Johnson came up with his biggest rag hit, Dill Pickles, featuring the now ubiquitous three over four ragtime pattern later used throughout Tin Pan Alley. It was allegedly named quite by happenstance, when another employee in the building asked him what he was working on. Johnson saw the employees dinner in his hand, including a dill pickle, and decided that would be the name of the piece. From that point on, Johnson's output was quite remarkable in terms of both volume and quality as well as commercial viability. It was just one of four of his rags which reportedly sold over a million copies each during his lifetime.
     The success of Dill Pickles helped to both encourage and fund Johnson's entry into running his publishing firm. Because of the number of rags, songs, intermezzos, and other publications he put out, Charlie used the pseudonyms Raymond Birch, Herbert Leslie and Eugene Ballard from time to time so as to not "flood the market" with his own works. At one point, when he sold his firm for a tidy sum to the Harold Rossiter organization, it was on the condition that he not enter the publishing business again for at least one year. But with his output and reputation, Johnson had no trouble getting published by other music houses during that time. He also worked both free-lance and on retainer as an arranger during the ragtime era, and there are many more pieces than we may ever know of that he was responsible for putting in print.
     Many of Johnson's own rags after 1906 utilized the secondary rag, or three over four pattern he had first used in Dill Pickles. Since they were generally easy to play and memorize, his products sold briskly. Simplicity worked well for his style, and he was widely regarded for his work by many fledgling composers who asked him for advice or even sent in works for Charlie to arrange. But he was also admired for his versatility. Johnson was just as adept at turning out a ballad or intermezzo as a popular rag. Later works in the mid-1910s leaned towards dance tunes, and even rags often had a lightly or non-syncopated fox-trot trio. There is obviously a lot of joy in his music, and he reportedly lived the same way.
     The majority of his compositions from mid-1912 on were published by Forster Music, as he retired from the publishing business at that point. In 1910 he was shown living still with Sylvia, but their daughter does not appear. Hs 1918 draft card shows him again as music publisher, but employed by the Jack Riley Orchestra. It also implies he was no longer married at this time, as his mother is listed as his nearest relative and no wife shown. One of his biggest hits came in 1919 with Sweet and Low, a song that reportedly earned him $30,000 while in print.
     It is noteworthy that while Johnson rarely published works by other composers, many that he did were composed by women. In a somewhat competitive market with two other big publishers in town, Johnson did see that any worthy submission got its due in something more than a vanity publication. These include Kate Myers Stith, Enola Kempka, Elva Tarlton, Maude Muller Gilmore, Lucy B. Phillips, Frances Cox and Ethel May Earnist, the last of which was thought to be one of his pen names for many years. Later business was referred largely to Forster, so in that regard we cannot be absolutely sure how many composers of either gender he sent their way, or even to rival Jenkins & Sons in Kansas City. Even more remarkable is how maintained viable competition for the Tin Pan Alley composers of New York City, as well as popular Chicago composers, all from his headquarters in Kansas City.
     Charlie married again in the 1920's to Eva Johnson, and spent much of the rest of his life peripherally active in music while officially in retirement. The 1930 census shows him still as a music composer, and living with his wife and mother. That same year, after more than three decades of composing, saw another relative success with a recording of his Jubilee in the Sky by Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians. Among Johnson's best friends in his later years were the Forsters who the couple socialized with often. In Kansas City he was active for many years with an annual event called the Nit Wit Show run by the University Club. Finally in 1941 he joined ASCAP more than two decades after it was founded, adding him to the ranks of other famous Tin Pan Alley composers who had started the organization. Johnson also continued to write and arrange, with some of his arrangements done for the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. It was discovered after his death that he had written a great deal more material that had not been published, some of it perhaps written into the late 1940s. Charlie died peacefully just three weeks after his 75th birthday, and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.

     Acknowledgement should be given to Phil A. Stewart of Kansas who has done the most extensive research on Johnson, which was a helpful augmentation to the demographic research done by this author. He has also compiled the most extensive list of Johnson compositions available, and has a book and a separate music folio available on Johnson, both of which are highly recommended. The list of unpublished works is from the Kansas City Library which houses the official Charles L. Johnson papers.

     Please note that Sweetness by Fannie Bell Woods and Peanuts: A Nutty Rag by Ethel Earniest are not included in the lists or the biography as Johnson pseudonyms which was previously believed to be the case. The identity of both women as the true composers of those works has been absolutely verified with great detail to back this contention up. Their respective biographies can be found in the Female Ragtime Composers section.

James Hubert "Eubie" Blake (February 7, 1887 to February 12, 1983)
Ragtime/Jazz Compositions
c.1903 Charleston Rag [Sounds of Africa] c.1907 Kitchen Tom Brittwood Rag c.1910 The Baltimore Todolo Poor Jimmy Green Poor Katie Rad Novelty Rag c.1911 Tickle the Ivories [1] 1914 Ragtime Rag The Chevy Chase Fizz Water Classic Rag c.1915 Baltimore Buzz 1916 Bugle Call Rag [w/Carey Morgan] c.1919 Blue Rag in Twelve Keys Black Keys on Parade 1921 Fare Thee Honey Blues It's Right Here for You 1923 That Syncopated Charleston Dance Rain Drops 1935 Butterfly Truckin' On Down 1936 Blue Thoughts 1945 Boogie Woogie Beguine	1949 Dicty's On Seventh Avenue 1950 Capricious Harlem 1958 Hot Feet 1959 Tricky Fingers Ragtime Toreador [1] 1969 Eubie's Boogie 1971 Troublesome Ivories Melodic Rag [1] Novelty Rag [1] 1972 Eubie Dubie [w/Johnny Guarinieri] Eubie's Classical Rag Valse Marion 1973 Rhapsody in Ragtime 1974 Randi's Rag 1975 Betty Washboard's Rag [1] Unknown or Uncertain Broadway in Dahomey [1] Joe Stern Rag [1] Merry Widow Rag [1] Raggin' the Rag [1] Ragtime Piano Tricks [1] Scarf Dance [1] Waltz Amelia [1]    1. Unpublished or Uncopyrighted
Selected Compositions
1915 It's All Your Fault [2,3] 1916 See America First [2,3] My Loving Baby [2] At the Pullman Porters [2] 1917 Mammy's Little Chocolate Cullud Chile [2] A Little Bit of Honey [2] 1918 To Hell with Germany I've Got the Lovin'es' Love forYou [2,4] On Patrol in No Man's Land [2,4] Mirandy (That Gal o' Mine) [2,4] 1919 All of No Man's Land is Ours [2,4] Good Night Angeline [2,4] Jazz Baby [2,4] Baltimore Blues [2] Michi Mori San [2] Ain't-Cha Coming Back, Mary Ann, to     Maryland [2] Affectionate Dan [2] Gee! I Wish I Had Someome to Rock Me     (in the Cradle of Love) [2] You've Been a Good Little Mammy to     Me [2] Gee! I'm Glad That I'm From Dixie [2] I'm Simply Full of Jazz [2] He's Always Hanging Around [2] 1920 Florodora Girls Oriental Blues [2] Broadway Blues [2] Pickaninny Shoes [2] 1921 Good Fellow Blues Boll Weevil Blues [2] Arkansas Blues (Down Home Chant) [2] High Steppin' Days Low Down Blues [2] Shuffle Along: Musical [2]    Love Will Find a Way    Bandana Days    Sing Me to Sleep, Dear Mammy    (In) Honeysuckle Time    Gypsy Blues    Shuffle Along    (I'm Just) Wild about Harry    Syncopation Stenos    Baltimore Buzz (Song)    If You've Never Been Vamped by a     Brownskin, You've Never Been     Vamped at All    Uncle Tom and Old Black Joe    Everything Reminds Me of You    I Am Craving for That Kind of Love    Daddy (Won't You Please Come Home)    African Dip 1922 Seranade Blues [2] You Were Meant for Me Boo Hoo Hoo [2] Lovin' Chile [2] 1923 Don't Love Me Blues [2] Elsie: Musical [2]    A Regular Guy    Two Hearts in Tune    My Crinoline Girl    I'd Like to Walk with a Pal Like You    Baby Buntin'    Sand Flowers    Everybody's Struttin' Now    Thunderstorm Jazz 1924 You Ought to Know [2] I Was Meant for You [2] There's a Million Little Cupids in the     Sky [2] Dear Lil' Pal [2]	1924 (Cont) The Chocolate Dandies: Musical [2]    Have A Good Time, Everybody    That Charleston Dance    The Slave of Love    I'll Find My Love in D-I-X-I-E    Bandanaland    The Sons of Old Black Joe    Jassamine Lane    Dumb Luck    Jump Steady    Breakin' 'Em Down    A Jockey's Life for Mine    Dixie Moon    The Land of Dancing Pickaninnies    Thinking of Me    Manda (Fox Trot Blues)    Take Down Dis Letter    Chocolate Dandies 1925 Why Did You Make Me Care? I Wonder Where My Sweetie Can Be [2] That South Car'lina Jazz Dance [2] Broken Busted Blues [2] 1926 A Jockey's Life for Mine [2] Messin' Around [5] 1927 You're Calling Me Georgia [6] 1930 Loving You the Way I Do [w/Will     Morrisey & Jack Scholl] Lew Leslie's Blackbirds: Musical [5]    My Handy Man Ain't Handy No More    Baby Mine    Cabin Door    We're the Berries    Mozambique    Take a Trip to Harlem    That Lindy Hop    Green Pastures [w/Will Morrisey]    Dianna Lee    Memories of You    You're Lucky to Me    Roll, Jordan, Roll 1933 Sore Foot Blues Dusting Around 1936 It Ain't Being Done No More [w/George     Sherzer & Gene Irwin] 1936 Mr. Church Rock, Church, Rock [7] 1937 Blues, Why Don't You Let Me Alone?     [w/Arthur Porter] Ain't We Got Love Moods of Harlem 1940 Playing Bingo [7] [w/E.P. Levy] We Are Americans Too 1941 I'd Give a Dollar for a Dime [5] 1942 Sweet Magnolia Rose [5] 194 John Saw the Number [7] 1960 Tweets Says [2] [w/Roslyn Stock] 1968 Didn't the Angels Sing [2] 19?? Jubilee Tonight [2] [w/Perry Bradford]    2. w/Noble Sissle    3. w/Eddie Nelson    4. w/James Reese Europe    5. w/Andy Razaf    6. w/Bernie Grossman &       Eddie Nelson    7. w/J. Milton Reddie

     Eubie Blake was one of the longest lasting pioneers of ragtime, and lived to nearly a week past his 96th birthday, not his 100th as had long been believed. There is much in the way of legal demographic evidence to show that Blake was actually born in 1887, not 1883 as was commonly written throughout the second half of the 20th century. He was born to former slaves, and was reportedly the only child of 11 that survived to adulthood. Blake showed a definite propensity for both performance and composition at a very young age, and his parents obtained a reed organ so he could learn on a keyboard instrument. His earliest rag, Charleston Rag (reportedly 1903 at least some form), remains a challenge to this day for even the most adept pianists. There is a plausible legend often told that when in his teens, Eubie was playing in Baltimore brothels, including that of Angie Shelton. A friend of his mother reportedly heard Eubie's distinct playing of Charleston Rag wafting out from the windows of one of this bordellos (what was she doing in that part of town anyway?). The incident was, of course, immediately reported, and when Eubie came home that evening/morning, his mother was waiting. "Whatchyu doin' playin' in one of them houses of ill repute?" she demanded. After a bit of stuttering and gathering himself, the younger Blake looked at his mother and said, "I'm gettin' near a hundred dollars a night, mama." After a moment of thought and decision, Mama replied, "Well, give me half and I won't tell your father!"
     In truth, Blake did study with professional teachers, and graduated from Baltimore to Atlantic City, and later to New York. He wrote a number of rags that made it to publication during the 1910's, but they unfortunately had to be simplified from his unique playing style for public consumption. Many of his rhythms and "Eubieisms" were just too complex to notate, much less to play. Included in these are The Chevy Chase, named after an equestrian country club just north of the District of Columbia line in suburban Maryland, where Blake had likely performed at some point. Another title, Fizz Water, showed adaptability as it was written as a one-step but also made for a good two-step or rag with a little alteration. The span of Blake's hands easily reached a twelfth, or a full octave and a half on the keyboard. So the left hand patterns were often condensed in print for easier playing by the average pianist. Fortunately for history, he cut many piano rolls of his material during this period, as well as later in life.
     During this period in New York City, Eubie made a name for himself both as a pianist and an occasional musical director. He both influenced and learned from other Harlem artists, including his long time friend Charles Luckeyeth "Luckey" Roberts. Both men had comparable styles and hand spans, and Roberts was the first of the Harlem pianists to have his works published, followed shortly by the transplanted native of Baltimore. He also knew and worked with many members of the much vaunted Clef Club, such as founder James Reese Europe and Will Marion Cook. Being the most disciplined musicians in the city, white or black, all of them saw work performing for the cream of society, which helped refine their musical skills and personalities even further. He married classical pianist Avis Lee in New York in 1910.
     In 1915, Eubie met lyricist Noble Sissle, and started a long run as a composing duo. Sissle served in France during World War One under Jim Europe, but when he returned they re-teamed as the Dixie Duo on the Keith Vaudeville circuit. Sissle and Blake not only burned up the stage in the last years of vaudeville, but they were among the first black songwriters to be produced on Broadway. One of their best known shows, which has seen revivals throughout the 20th century, is Shuffle Along, which was produced in collaboration with the comedy team of Flournoy E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles, and based on their own play, The Mayor of Jimtown. It ran a very respectable 504 performances in its first run between two theaters. Among their best known songs from these shows was I'm Just Wild About Harry, which he played regularly for most of his life. The show was briefly revived during the 1932 holiday season, but ran for barely 2 weeks.
     Sissle and Blake's efforts on the stage made it possible for many other black artists to have their works heard and produced. The duo also appeared in one of Lee De Forest's early experimental optical sound-on-film shorts in 1923. Blake later recalled that it was a difficult thing for Sissle to remain still in front of the camera since he liked to move, and believes that they were the first black act ever on sound film, giving credence to how influential they were on Broadway. Blake was also known to some degree, according to later reports from those who traveled with him, as quite the ladies man and a quiet philanderer. Shuffle Along was followed by Elsie, which made it through only 40 performances. Another show in the fall of 1924, Chocolate Dandies, also did not fare so well, perhaps because it bucked stereotypes and presented blacks in more of a white context in terms of humor and romance. It closed after 96 performances. In 1925 the pair toured Europe. After they returned Sissle decided to return to Europe and the team split up, although they would reunite briefly in 1958 with other Broadway friends to create a recording of their songs and for a couple of subsequent events.
     Starting in 1926 Eubie teamed up with lyricist Andy Razaf for several years. They turned out several hits including the poignantly beautiful Memories of You and other tunes incorporated into Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1930. This early Great Depression show was touted as "Glorifying the Negro" and included music by Spencer Williams and Clarence Williams. By this time, Razaf had also become one of Fats Waller's most frequent lyricist partners, but he was widely employed in the 1930s and 1940s by many composers and continued to write with Eubie as well. Blake revered him because he could supposedly write in meter almost as fast as Eubie could play the melody line. During the Second World War, as Blake had inflated his age by four years, perhaps (unverified) to be of less use to the military, he briefly reteamed with Sissle and they toured with the USO doing shows in the US and in the various war theaters in Europe. Eubie supposedly retired from music at some point after World War II, but kept resurfacing one way or another right up until his death as his interest never waned.
     After taking some formal classes in harmony and the Schillinger compositional method, he experimented with a number of formats incorporated into ragtime. Among the most unique are the harmonically challenging Dicty's on Seventh Avenue and the engaging Rhapsody in Ragtime. The bulk of Mr. Blake's recordings were made from the 1950's through the 1970's. Among the more notable ones include a session arranged by ragtime performer Bob Darch in 1962. Darch had Blake and a couple of friends from his early days, Charley Thompson and Joe Jordan, brought to Florida where they reminisced and played for a recording that was released both as a radio show and, edited down, a record album called Golden Reunion in Ragtime on the Stereoddities label. This may have jump started his new desire to make records, but still remains an important recording. In 1968 he was reunited again with Sissle for the mislabeled album The 86 Years of Eubie Blake (should have read as 82) and the old team also composed a tribute to slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King at the same time. Blake also mentored many young artists, including Terry Waldo, who did many important transcriptions of Eubie's pieces in the early 1970's, and Jim Hession, who has had a successful career in ragtime and jazz, and with the Disney organization. Surprisingly, the elderly Eubie Blake even made appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and as the guest musical artist on Saturday Night Live in March of 1979 at the age of 92. He performed right into his 95th year.
     It is still a mystery as to why the birth date changed, and it seems to bear some significance to those who wanted Eubie to live to be 100. In all fairness, there was another James H. Blake Jr. born in Easton, Maryland not too far from Baltimore, in 1883, as Census records from 1900 forward would indicate. However, he was not ever shown in the music business, listed instead as a laborer. This does not explain the Eubie deception. The 1900 Census shows him as 13 in Baltimore. Eubie appears in the 1910 Census in Atlantic City, New Jersey, as a musician, the stated age being 24 (just a little off). His WWI draft card very clearly indicates February 7, 1887 as a birth date as does a 1920 Passport application. The 1920 Census, in which he is listed as an actor (partially true), has the more accurate age of 33, although no birth year indicated. His marriage certificate also indicates 1887 as birth year. The 1930 Census again shows him as a theater actor, but an age that implies an 1889 birth year - younger instead of older. Surprisingly, even his 1983 death record shows the 1887 birth date, yet it took nearly 20 years for this information to become public knowledge, even to ragtime authorities. When did the deception begin? This is hard to pinpoint. However, his 1942 draft registration card lists him as being born in 1883 and therefore 59 at that point, just a little old to be inducted and be of much use. The government did not have computerized records back then, or this inconsistency may have been quickly caught. That he did this knowingly to the Army is surprising, but we may never know his true reasons. Note that most of the knowledge we have of Eubie concerning age, et. al, was from word of mouth and interviews done from the time of They All Played Ragtime (1950) forward. So given that earlier buried records were essentially not well researched in lieu of Mr. Blake's integrity is understandable to a degree.
     The author/artist had his own personal experience with Eubie. It was in 1971 when a classic movie/stage theatre in Santa Monica, California, in celebration of a recent refurbishment, presented a restored version of Lon Chaney's 1927 classic Phantom of the Opera. It included many hand-tinted scenes along with one two-strip Technicolor segment, and they even transcribed some of the music seen on the Phantom's organ to play back during the screening on the theatre's magnificent organ. Afterwards, the incomparable Eubie Blake performed about a half hour show on the piano. It was then I was presented the remarkable opportunity to meet the artist. I was nervous enough about this, being the fledgling twelve year old ragtime pianist that I was. But I remember drawing back a bit when the inordinately long fingers on his spidery hand came towards me. What an awesome experience this was, and a memory that will always stay with me.

     Much of the biographical research on Eubie Blake, as well as restoration of his musical legacy, is through the efforts of Terry Waldo who transcribed and assembled the famed Sincerely Eubie folio. The revelation of the birth date issue is in part due to the extraordinary efforts of the tireless Mike Meddings of the United Kingdom, a well known Jelly Roll Morton researcher. Additional demographics on age and other facets of Blakes life shown here were researched by the author.