Some thoughts on The Life Of Johnny Maddox

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 and career would be. Nevertheless, Johnny Maddox richly deserves everything that can be said about him and this is my small offering. I realize there are many ways to divide the various eras of ragtime, but I have my own preference. There was the era of the original composers I roughly date from the 1890s to the 1930s. From the 1940s to the 1960s ragtime fell out of popularity but was kept alive and well by the performers and composers in what I usually refer to as the preservation era. Next came the great revival era of the 1970s when ragtime burst back to popularity and finally, the modern era from the 1980s that has brought syncopation to brilliant new heights of performance and composition. It is during the preservation era where Johnny Maddox made his most valuable contributions. There were but a few artists performing and composing during the nearly lost decades from 1940 to 1970. If the Irish monks saved Western civilization in the Middle Ages as Thomas Cahill speculates, then Johnny Maddox and the other few did much the same for ragtime music during his amazing career ultimately spanning nearly eight decades. Without these talented performers keeping the world aware of ragtime, the revival and modern eras of the style would probably not ha