Scott Joplin, an acclaimed American composer and practitioner of ragtime music, was born in East Texas, USA, sometime between mid-January 1868 and June 1, 1867. His mother was born free, but his father was a former slave. In the mid-1870s, Scott's family moved to Texarkana, Arkansas where his mother worked as a domestic servant for a family with a piano, and Scott was permitted to play it. Despite being raised in a musical environment with both of his parents playing instruments, he left home while still a teenager and is believed to have worked as an itinerant pianist in bars and brothels. In 1893, Joplin played on the periphery of the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, but African Americans were not allowed to participate in the official program of concerts. Nevertheless, he met accomplished pianists there and settled with one of his friends and partner in Sedalia, Missouri in 1894. His first notable success came when he sold "Maple Leaf Rag" to a white businessman, John Stark. This rag hit sold more than half a million copies by 1909. Stark became Joplin's agent, nicknaming him "King of Ragtime", and they moved to St. Louis, Missouri. While Joplin wrote more ragtime hits, he also tried to establish himself as a composer of larger-scale works, like an opera and a folk ballet, but they had limited performance success. The advent of the phonograph and player piano reduced the sheet music market by 1906, and personal tragedies struck when his first child died in infancy, followed by his wife. Joplin remarried before he was ultimately diagnosed with dementia caused by syphilis, leading to his eventual death in a psychiatric ward in New York City in 1917. Joplin's music was rediscovered in the 1970s, particularly with the inclusion of "The Entertainer" in the 1973 film "The Sting". The complete opera, "Treemonisha," was finally performed in 1972, with an original cast recording becoming available in 1992.
