Joplin scott biography images

It is with good reason that Sedalia, Missouri has become central to the Joplin story and the site of the annual Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival. Yet, for all his prominence and recognition, many of the facts regarding his life still elude us. We are not quite sure, for example, when or where he was born. It seems he was born in Texas, probably in the northeast part of the state as U.

Census records locate him there in July as a two-year-old child. As he was already two at that time and was twelve when the next Census was taken, in June indicates that the frequently-cited and celebrated birth date of November 24, is incorrect. So then, when was he born? Available documents point to a birth between June and mid-January They moved to the newly established town of Texarkana, which straddles the Texas-Arkansas border.

When was scott joplin born and died

The Joplins lived on both sides of the border. Anecdotes relate that the young Scott Joplin gained access to a piano in a white-owned home where his mother worked, and taught himself the rudiments of music. In support of this story, we note its reflection in details of Treemonisha, an opera that Joplin published in In the s, the teenage Joplin lived for a while in Sedalia and attended Lincoln High School in the black neighborhood north of the railroad.

Unconfirmed anecdotes tell also of his starting a musical career in the s and traveling to St. Louis, which was to become a major center of ragtime. After the fair, he returned to Sedalia, established it as his home, and played first cornet in the Queen City Cornet Band; a local ensemble of black musicians. His membership in the band was for about a year, and on leaving he formed his own band, working at dances and other events.