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Early life
Joplin was the second of six children born to Giles Joplin, an ex-slave from North Carolina, and Florence Givens, a freeborn African-American woman from Kentucky. . His birth date was accepted by early biographers Blesh and Haskins as Novermber 24, 1868, although later biographer Berlin showed this was "almost certainly incorrect". There is disagreement over his exact place of birth in Texas, with Blesh identifying Texarkana, Texas, and Berlin showing the earliest record of Joplin being the June 1870 census which locates him in Linden, Texas as a two-year old.

By 1880 The Joplins moved to Texarkana, Arkansas, where Giles worked as a railroad laborer and Florence as a cleaner. As Joplin's father had played the violin for plantation parties in North Carolina, and his mother sang and played the banjo, he was given a rudimentary musical education by his family, and from the age of seven, he was allowed to play the piano while his mother cleaned.

At some point in the early 1880s, Giles Joplin left the family for another woman, and Florence struggled to support her children through domestic work. Biographer Susan Curtis speculates that Florence's support of her son's musical education was a critical factor behind her separation from Giles, who wanted the boy to pursue practical employment that would supplement the family income.

According to a family friend, the young Joplin was serious and ambitious, studying music and playing the piano after school. While a few local teachers aided him, he received most of his musical education from Julius Weiss, a German-born American Jewish music professor who had immigrated to Texas in the late 1860s and was employed as music tutor by a prominent local business family. Weiss, as described by San Diego Jewish World writer Eric George Tauber, "was no stranger to [receiving] race hatred... As a German Jew, he was often slapped and called a “Christ-killer." Weiss had studied music at a German university and was listed in town records as a professor of music. Impressed by Joplin's talent, and realizing the Joplin family's dire straits, Weiss taught him free of charge. While tutoring the 11-year-old Joplin until age 16, Weiss introduced him to folk and classical music, including opera. Weiss helped Joplin appreciate music as an "art as well as an entertainment," and helped Florence acquire a used piano. According to Weiss' wife Lottie, Joplin never forgot Weiss. In his later years, after achieving fame as a composer, Joplin sent his former teacher "...gifts of money when he was old and ill" until Weiss died. At the age of 16, Joplin performed in a vocal quartet with three other boys in and around Texarkana, also playing piano. He also taught guitar and mandolin.

Life in St Louis

After the Joplins moved to St. Louis in early 1900, they had a baby daughter who died only a few months after birth. Joplin's relationship with his wife was difficult, as she had no interest in music. They eventually separated and then divorced. About this time, Joplin collaborated with Scott Hayden in the composition of four rags. It was in St. Louis that Joplin produced some of his best-known works, including "The Entertainer", "March Majestic", and the short theatrical work "The Ragtime Dance". By 1903 the Joplins had moved to a 13-room house, renting some of the rooms to lodgers which included pianist-composers Arthur Marshall and Scott Hayden. Joplin did not work as a pianist in the saloons in St Louis, which was usually a major source of income for musicians, as he was "probably outclassed by the competition" and was, according to Stark's son, "a mediocre pianist". Biographer Berlin speculated that by 1903 Joplin was already showing early signs of the syphilis which negatively affected his coordination and "pianistic skills".

Also - in a bad way after Freddie web-page https://www.scottjoplin.org/joplin-biography.html

New York

In 1907, Joplin moved to New York City, which he believed was the best place to find a producer for a new opera. After his move to New York, Joplin met Lottie Stokes, whom he married in 1909. In 1911, unable to find a publisher, Joplin undertook the financial burden of publishing Treemonisha himself in piano-vocal format. In 1915, as a last-ditch effort to see it performed, he invited a small audience to hear it at a rehearsal hall in Harlem. Poorly staged and with only Joplin on piano accompaniment, it was "a miserable failure" to a public not ready for "crude" black musical forms—so different from the European grand opera of that time. The audience, including potential backers, was indifferent and walked out. Scott writes that "after a disastrous single performance ... Joplin suffered a breakdown. He was bankrupt, discouraged, and worn out." He concludes that few American artists of his generation faced such obstacles: "Treemonisha went unnoticed and unreviewed, largely because Joplin had abandoned commercial music in favor of art music, a field closed to African Americans." In fact, it was not until the 1970s that the opera received a full theatrical staging.

In 1914, Joplin and Lottie self-published his "Magnetic Rag" as the Scott Joplin Music Company, which he had formed the previous December. Biographer Vera Brodsky Lawrence speculates that Joplin was aware of his advancing deterioration due to syphilis and was "...consciously racing against time." In her sleeve notes on the 1992 Deutsche Grammophon release of Treemonisha she notes that he "...plunged feverishly into the task of orchestrating his opera, day and night, with his friend Sam Patterson standing by to copy out the parts, page by page, as each page of the full score was completed."

By 1916, Joplin was suffering from tertiary syphilis but more specifically it likely was neurosyphilis. In January 1917, he was admitted to Manhattan State Hospital, a mental institution. He died there on April 1 of syphilitic dementia at the age of 48 and was buried in a pauper's grave that remained unmarked for 57 years. His grave at Saint Michaels Cemetery in East Elmhurst was finally given a marker in 1974, the year The Sting, which showcased his music, won for Best Picture at the Oscars.

Works

Joplin's first and most significant hit, the "Maple Leaf Rag", was described as the archetype of the classic rag, and influenced subsequent rag composers for at least 12 years after its initial publication thanks to its rhythmic patterns, melody lines, and harmony, though with the exception of Joseph Lamb, they generally failed to enlarge upon it. Joplin used the Maple Leaf Rag as inspiration for subsequent works such as The Cascades in 1903, Leola in 1905, Gladiolus Rag in 1907, and Sugar Cane Rag in 1908. While he used similar harmonic and melodic patterns the later compositions were not simple copies, but were distinctly new works, which used dissonance, chromatic sections and the blues third notes.

References