BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AN AFRICAN AMERICAN COMPOSER AND PIANIST : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

Scott Joplin ( Born in 1867 and died in April 1st 1917 )  was an African American Composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime composition and was later dubbed " The King Of Ragtime".  During his brief career he wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime piece , one rag time ballet and two operas. One of his first pieces the " The Maple Leaf Rag" became ragtime first and most influential hit and has been recognized as the archetypal rag. Joplin was born into a musical family of labors in North East Texas and develop his musical knowledge with help of a local teacher most notably Julius Weiss.

Joplin grew up in Texarkana, where he formed a vocal quartet and taught mandolin and guitar. During the late 1880 he left his job as a labor with rail road and traveled around America South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the world fair of 1893 which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897. Joplin moved to Sedalia Missouri in 1894 and earned a living as a piano teacher, continuing  to tour the South. In Sedalia he taught future ragtime composer like Arthur Marshall, Scott Hayden and Burn Campbell.  Joplin began publishing music in 1895 and publication of his " Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him his  fame. This piece had a profound influence on subsequent writers of ragtime. It also brought the composer a steady income for life. Joplin did not reach this level of success again and had financial problems frequently.