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 he was living. I also think about the belated fame he has more recently achieved. In doing this, I have been led to consider the titles and descriptives bestowed on Joplin, and other performers and composers of our great music.
Joplin predicted, according to Arthur Marshall, that he would someday attain stature as the “King” of ragtime, and indeed, thanks to his publisher John Stark, he did attain a kind of ragtime royalty. However, the personal fame and fortune we associate with that title eluded him.
Through the years nearly every royal title associated with the British has been applied to performers or morphed into nicknames. There have been “Empresses” and “Queens,” “Princes” and “Princesses,” “Earls” and “Barons,” and even a pretty well known “Duke.”
There have been “Fathers” and “Mothers” in virtually every field and even religious titles from “Preacher,” to “Bishop,” not to mention the evangelical “Brother,” and “Sister.” And before I leave my directory of descriptives, I must mention we’ve also had a “Dizzy,” “Satchmo,” and a fellow known as “The Lion.”
Titles for performers through the years have stretched the boundaries of marketing creativity. Only spo
