Coming Soon: A Biography of Justin Ring

Since I moved to the Bronx back in September, I have been more inspired than ever to write and to draw. Living in the very place where much of the essential history in ragtime and recording happened is truly a privilege, and it is exceptionally motivating. There is nothing quite as nice as being able to spend time walking on ground where such incredible history happened. So with that, it is finally time to reveal that, as some readers of this column might have been wondering about it, I am writing a book. After over a decade of research, it is time to write a book on Justin Ring. It seems now that there is just enough information about him and those around him to manifest a decently sized book. There certainly hasn’t been a book about him done before. The only places he has generally been mentioned in the past are in one to two line sections about engineers who played a minor role in the recordings done by Okeh. Very few engineers and composers like Ring have been written about extensively, and thankfully in his case, he did write a short eight page autobiography that turned out unusually dense for how short it was. It is a bit jumbled in terms of chronology, but that is hardly surprising considering that he wrote it as an old man. Ring, of course, was much more than an engineer for Okeh. This book begins on the Bowery of the 1870s, and follows the gradual growth of Tin Pan Alley