There was a time when pianist Tom McDermott downplayed his affinity for ragtime composer Scott Joplin. For years, ragtime suffered from an image problem, a hokey stereotype of straw hats and Shakey’s ...

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Were it not for ragtime composer Scott Joplin, Tom McDermott may not have evolved into one of New Orleans’ most respected pianists. Growing up in St. Louis, McDermott had, by age 14, spent seven years ...

Scott Joplin was an early musician who transformed much of the landscape of popular music in the early 1900s. Though many details of his short life are uncertain, his impact on early American music is ...

In the post-Civil War era, the cruel breath of slavery and the aborted plan of Reconstruction still hung over the American South. But in the Joplin home, banjo and fiddle music filled the family’s ...