Despite the enormous popularity of his music, Joplin died impoverished at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center in 1917 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Queens. Origins edit The style of music was developed long before it was printed into sheet music. It isn’t recorded where or when Scott Joplin was born, but we do know that he was born. Scott Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions and was dubbed the 'King of Ragtime' by contemporaries. Scott Joplin was born to the parents of Giles Joplin, who was a former slave, and his mother, Florence Givens, who was a freed slave. Joplin traveled through the Midwest from the mid-1880s, performing at the Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. While his father tried to convince young Scott Joplin to work with him on the railroad that provided reliable work for African American men, Scotts heart. Scott Joplin was the King of Ragtime, composing more than one hundred pieces, including The Entertainer. No specific date or location of his birth, but Scott Joplin still made his mark in Arkansas as The King of Ragtime. King of Ragtime recreates the excitement of these pioneers, who dreamed of greatness as they sought to expand the limits society placed upon their race. Scott Joplin, (born 1867/68, Texas, U.S.died April 1, 1917, New York, New York), American composer and pianist known as the king of ragtime at the turn of the 20th century. The composer emerges as a representative of the first post-Civil War generation of African Americans, of the men and women who found in the world of entertainment a way out of poverty and lowly social status. Berlin paints a vivid picture of the ragtime years, placing Scott Joplin's story in its historical context. Berlin also reveals that Joplin was an associate of Irving Berlin, and that he accused Berlin of stealing his music to compose Alexander's Ragtime Band in 1911. He shows how Joplin's opera Treemonisha was a tribute to the woman he loved, a woman other biographers never even mentioned. His biography truly documents the story of the composer, replacing the myths and unsupported anecdotes of previous histories. Using the tools of a trained musicologist, he has uncovered a vast amount of new information about Joplin. A renowned authority on Joplin and the author of the acclaimed and widely cited Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History, Berlin redefines the Scott Joplin biography. Destined to be the definitive work on the man and his music, King of Ragtime is written by Edward A. His opera Treemonisha was performed both in opera houses and on Broadway. While reaching a "Top Ten" position in the pop charts, Joplin's music was also being performed in classical recitals and setting new heights for sales of classical records. Never before had any composer's music been so acclaimed by both the popular and classical music worlds. Scott Joplin - King of Ragtime PRODUCT TYPE: Book Softcover INSTRUMENT GROUP: Piano or Keyboard Composer, Scott Joplin Publisher, Ashley Publications. Led by The Entertainer, one of the most popular pieces of the mid-1970s, a revival of his music resulted in events unprecedented in American musical history. In 1974, the academy award-winning film The Sting brought back the music of Scott Joplin, a black ragtime composer who died in 1917.