This version appears to be a Pianola (player piano) roll that was created by Joplin himself in June 1916.  Joplin’s later biographer Edward A. Berlin notes that the “Maple Leaf Rag” roll was “painfully bad” and likely to be the truest record of Joplin’s playing at the time. The roll, however, does not reflect his abilities earlier in life.  Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin made these recordings he may have been experiencing discoordination of the fingers, tremors and an inability to speak clearly, symptoms of syphilis, the disease that took his life in 1917.

Scott Joplin was born in 1868 (tombstone says November 24, 1868), the son of a former slave. He was born into a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Arkansas, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. Joplin grew up in Texarkana, where he formed a vocal quartet, and taught mandolin and guitar. During the late 1880s he left his job as a laborer with the railroad, and travelled around the American South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the World’s Fair of 1893, which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.

Scott Joplin (photographer unknown)

This is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin’s early works (he wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas) and became the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. It is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces.

Joplin played as a solo musician at dances and at the major black clubs in Sedalia, among them the “Maple Leaf Club”. It is possible that the rag was named after the Maple Leaf Club, although there is no direct evidence to prove the link, and there were probably many other possible sources for the name in and around Sedalia at the time. The date the club was founded is uncertain, but it was no later than November 24, 1898, when the first Maple Leaf ball was held. It is possible though that the actual music predates this. The “Maple Leaf Rag” was already known in Sedalia prior to its publication in 1899; composer and pianist Brun Campbell claimed to have seen the manuscript of the work in or around 1898.

“Maple Leaf Rag” was published while he was living in Sedalia, Missouri between August 10 and September 20, 1899, the latter being the date the score was received by the Copyright Office.

As a result Joplin was called the “King of Ragtime”. The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life (a contract which gave him a one cent per copy royalty). Despite ragtime’s decline after Joplin’s death in 1917, the “Maple Leaf Rag” continued to be recorded by many well-known artists.

Soon after the “Maple Leaf Rag’s” publication the earliest recordings of the rag took place; band leader Wilbur Sweatman recorded it onto Phonograph cylinder a year later, but there are no known copies which have survived. The first surviving record of the rag comes from the second known recording of the rag by the United States Military Band from 1906.

In 1903 Stark, the original producer Joplin signed with, issued a “Maple Leaf Rag Song”, an arrangement of Joplin’s music with words by Sydney Brown. Brown’s lyrics tell the story of a poor man from Accomack County, Virginia, who stumbles into a ballroom where, in spite of his anxiety over the state of his appearance he manages to wow the crowd with the Maple Leaf Rag. While the men are jealous of his dancing abilities and draw their razors, the women love him, and the “finest belle” sends for a carriage and the two of them ride away.

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