David Thomas Roberts’ Ragtime Transcendence
Larry Melton
May 30, 2019
Those who have been moved by the lyrically sensitive compositions of David Thomas Roberts and have found them to stimulate mind and soul will understand
Those who have been moved by the lyrically sensitive compositions of David Thomas Roberts and have found them to stimulate mind and soul will understand
They All Played Ragtime (Alfred A. Knopf, Ltd., 1950) by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis is a wonderful story of our ragtime heritage. There have
A new CD of Max Morath’s compositions played by Sue Keller and Jeff Barnhart includes liner notes written by Morath. The notes provide an insight
Each year as a Scott Joplin anniversary rolls around, I get to pondering the composer’s tragic life and the lack of acclaim he received while
Imagine the privilege of sitting a few rows behind Eubie Blake on the night of January 28, 1972, and watching his whole body move to
I am often asked about my background in music, what instruments I play, and when I first became interested. My flippant response is that I
Just when I was becoming accustomed to getting my ragtime music solely from the Internet and recordings, I had a pleasant surprise. Virginia Tichenor emailed
This month, I fear I will be rambling even more than usual. So many things rattle around in my head these days, so I’ll just
When given the task of writing about a legend of ragtime, I was instantly struck by how inadequate a few words describing such a life
I have recently been blowing the dust off nearly 50 years of photos and ephemera from the many annual trips my wife and I took
“My sitting next to you and your wife at the concert in Sedalia was truly serendipitous,” Fred Hoeptner wrote me after we met for the
For some time now, I have been gathering material on “Ragtime” Bob Darch in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of his birth in 2020. I
The Age of Sound I recently discovered that the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry has made the final selections for it’s now completed “500
I spend a lot of time blowing the dust off of old newspaper clippings, especially articles about the ragtime festivals in Sedalia over the years.
Will Benefit Music Education and Appreciation in Schools The Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival Foundation in Sedalia, Missouri, has established a Memorial Fund to honor author,
No dusting off this month, only fresh anecdotes and delightful reminiscences. I managed to spend a week at the 38th Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in
This month I am going to use this tiny Sedalia newspaper snippet from 1902 to discuss some thoughts on research and then segue to writing
Recently, letters written between 1945 and 1951 by S. Brunson Campbell (Scott Joplin’s white pupil in Sedalia in the late 1890s) were made public for
Back in November, those of us interested in all things ragtime were excited to learn of Bryan Wright’s Grammy nomination in the Best Liner Notes
A fond memory from the ragtime revival years of the early 1970s was a trip to Texarkana, a community which famously straddles the border between
Throughout mid-February, I was suitably entertained watching the Winter Olympics. I thoroughly enjoy the amazing feats of skill, endurance, agility and downright courage the athletes
“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” This line, credited to Andy Warhol from a Stockholm exhibit catalog in 1968, has gone
At a time when most people are just beginning to hit their stride, Sam Post already has a long list of accomplishments to his name
I was visiting recently with a friend about angels. Not the Gabriel types, with trumpets blaring, or the ones like Clarence waiting to get their
