Scott Joplin is viewed as the “King of Ragtime,” and was the foremost composer of the genre in the early 20th century, known for works like “The Maple Leaf Rag” and “The Entertainer.”

Born in the late 1860s somewhere along the border between Texas and Arkansas, Scott Joplin took up the piano as a child and eventually became a travelling musician as a teen.

He published his first piano rag in the late 1890s, but was made to share credit with another arranger. Joplin then worked with a lawyer to ensure that he would receive a one-cent royalty of every sheet-music copy sold of his next composition, “The Maple Leaf Rag.”

Joplin also aspired to produce long-form works, publishing the ballet Rag Time Dance in 1902 and producing his first opera, A Guest of Honor in 1903. He died in New York City on April 1, 1917.

In the 1970s Ragtime became popular again thanks to the feature film The Sting starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, in which “The Entertainer” became the theme song. In 1976 Joplin received a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize, honoring the man who shaped a genre that influenced decades of music.