An Evening With Ragtime Banjo Revival

Beaver Slide Rag - Peg Leg Howell & Eddie Anthony (1927)
We love to start with this piece as it grabs the attention and says "Hey! We're here to have a good time!" It's also nice to start not at the beginning and move forwards and backwards in time. This is sort of a ragtime country blues fiddle piece that shows the influence and represents a confluence of those different genres in an underrepresented Black American folk tradition.

Three in One Two Step - East Texas Serenaders (1929)
A contrasting country rag, this one from a group of white musicians recorded in 1929 and a fine example of a "crooked" tune. Apparently it's an amalgam of three tunes, including the "The Entertainer," "Dill Pickle Rag," and "I Don't Love Nobody" and a further demonstration of the long lasting influence of ragtime music. (The Maple Leaf Rag was published 30 years before this piece was recorded.)

Maple Leaf Rag - Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin (1868–1917) was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime,” he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the quintessential rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls and largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music most common in saloons.

Pearl of the Harem - Harry P. Guy (1870-1950)
Harry P. Guy attended the National Conservatory of Music in New York where the famed operetta and popular song composer and cellist Victor Herbert was one of his professors. Harry became heavily involved in Black musical affairs in New York, opening his own piano teaching studio, and even appearing once on stage at Carnegie Hall among other concerts. He moved to Detroit in 1895, where he would stay the rest of his life. In the pre-motor age Detroit was one of the major stops on both the vaudeville and theater circuits, so there was a lot of fresh musical activity in both Black and white venues. He quickly became involved with the Black musical community in Detroit, eventually becoming a founding member of Fred S. Stone's Black musicians union. One of Guy's earliest publications in Detroit was his often recorded Echoes from the Snowball Club from 1898, named after his own early musicians union and colored social club, and considered to be the first "rag-time waltz". Pearl of the Harem followed in 1901 and became a popular ragtime intermezzo and favorite of banjo player Fred Van Eps, who first recorded the piece in 1911.

Raggin' the Scale - Eubie Blake (1887-1983) & Hughie Wolford
James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was an American pianist and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals written and directed by African Americans. Not much is known about Hughie Wolford other than that he was a contemporary of Blake's in the early Boston ragtime scene. "Raggin' the Scale" was co-written by Blake and Wolford and copyrighted about a decade later by white composer Ed Claypoole. Years later Eubie lamented, "I never thought to copyright it or anything... I'd have felt foolish tryin' to copyright the scale."

Beale Street Blues - W.C. Handy (1873–1958)
William Christopher Handy was an American composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. He was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musicians who played the distinctively American blues music, Handy did not create the blues genre but was one of the first to publish music in the blues form, thereby taking the blues from a regional music style (Delta blues) with a limited audience to a new level of popularity. Handy started his own publishing business and in 1917 moved from Memphis to New York City. By the end of that year, his most successful songs had been published: "Memphis Blues", "Beale Street Blues", and "Saint Louis Blues". That year, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a white New Orleans jazz ensemble, had recorded the first jazz record, introducing the style to a wide segment of the American public. Handy had little fondness for jazz, but bands dove into his repertoire with enthusiasm, making many of these songs jazz standards.

A Banjo Frolic - Joe Morley (1867-1937)
Joe Morley was a British classic banjoist who achieved great fame and renown in his homeland and abroad. During his lifetime, he composed hundreds of banjo solos. Although this piece is from 1932, after the peak of classic banjo's popularity, it's worth noting that classic banjo music preceded and influenced the development of ragtime and was the most popular style of music in the English-speaking world from the mid-19th century into the early 20th.

Chicken Chowder - Irene Giblin (1888-1974)
Irene Marie Giblin was a popular young woman in the Irish-American community in St. Louis. She worked at music stores, playing the piano for several hours a day to convince the customers to buy the latest scores. Giblin published a total of ten ragtime songs over a period of six years, from 1905 to 1911. Among them, "Sleepy Lou" and "The Aviator Rag" were popular sellers. However, it was her first rag, "Chicken Chowder" (1905) that was her most successful. She published her last rag in 1911, "The Dixie Rag".

Ragtime Oriole - James Scott (1885-1938)
James Sylvester Scott was an American ragtime composer and pianist. He is regarded as one of the "Big Three" composers of classical ragtime along with Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb. In 1905 Scott went to St. Louis, Missouri, in search of his idol Scott Joplin. He located Joplin and asked if he would listen to one of his ragtime compositions. Upon hearing the rag, Joplin introduced him to his own publisher, John Stillwell Stark, and recommended he publish the work. Stark published the rag a year later as "Frog Legs Rag". It quickly became a hit and was second in sales in the Stark catalogue only to that of Joplin's own "Maple Leaf Rag". Scott became a regular contributor to the Stark catalogue until 1922. Scott's best-known compositions include "Climax Rag", '"Frog Legs Rag", "Grace and Beauty", "Ophelia Rag", and "The Ragtime Oriole".

Chasing Rainbows - Dallas String Band
Coley Jones (late 1880s – Unknown) was an American country blues mandolin player popular in Dallas, Texas, in the 1920s. Much of Jones's background, such as his residency, date of birth, and death are obscure, but he is best remembered for leading and recording with The Dallas String Band alongside Marco Washington on double bass, Sam Harris on guitar and several sidemen. The band produced ten sides during their existence, with each one displaying the group's complex instrumental abilities. The Dallas Strings later evolved into the Coley Jones String Band, notably including T-Bone Walker. By the end of 1929 no further documentation of Jones is found though it is generally thought he still was performing in Dallas well into the 1930s.

“When you want a real syncopated rag, well done with plenty of gravy, have it served hot on a banjo.” — Thomas Armstrong (1859-1932)

For decades around the turn of the 20th century classic finger-style banjo was the most popular kind of music in the English-speaking world, although today it is all but forgotten. This music comes from African-American music that was appropriated for minstrel shows and mingled with other popular styles of European and distinctly American origin. It gave rise to ragtime (for example, both of Scott Joplin’s parents played three-finger banjo), which fed into the development of jazz. Classic banjo is a bridge between the banjo of minstrel shows and the banjo of early jazz and country music.

Ragtime music represents the first music and dance movement of free Black people in the US. Its composers intended to create a music that would entertain and elevate, a music both lighthearted and dignified that could respond to Western European traditions and form a foundation for American popular and art music to come. Ragtime also represents the pinnacle of popular music before the widespread adoption of audio recording technology. These were the last days that the only way a person could hear music was by being within earshot of someone playing or singing, or by creating music themselves.

Our primary interest and challenge in this project is to find ways to make a near-dead form of music compelling and engaging in an environment where many people regard looking to the past as out-of-touch or moving backward. For us this music provides a missing link in our shared cultural history. It opens doors to discussion and understanding of how we got to where we are now and it's remarkably accessible and easy to enjoy.