12/15/2023 0 Comments Joseph lamb ragtime![]() ![]() The Trio and D section of Excelsior was submitted in the key of Gb, complimentary to the opening key of Db. But Excelsior not only offered proof of Joe's inherent musicality, but his persuasive personality as well. Ethiopia was markedly different from Sensation, and perhaps created a new musical definition for the term Classic Ragtime that Stark had allegedly instantiated. Stark ended up publishing twelve of Joe's rags between 19, arguably his finest dozen to that point, but there would be more to come. It is unclear as to if he did not submit some of his pieces, like Dynamite Rag, or if Stark simply chose to not purchase them. While Joe had written several pieces in 1908, including four rags, only Sensation was published at that time. Just the same, John Stark published pretty much anything Lamb sent him from that point on, even after the publisher retreated back to St Louis a couple of years later. A second payment was indeed made a few weeks later, but nothing further for his first true sensation. Joplin arranged to have Sensation published by Stark, who paid the composer $25 with the promise of another $25 after the first thousand copies were sold. ![]() Then, according to Joe, Joplin said, "That sounded like a good colored rag," which is exactly what Lamb had hoped to hear. By the time Lamb finished his performance the room full of Joplin's friends had gone quiet. Among the first pieces he played was his rag Sensation. So Joplin arranged for Lamb to play some of Joe's rags for him that evening (or soon after) at a gathering. "There he is." Lamb was enthralled, and after the accolades of admiration told Joplin that he had been writing ragtime too. Before leaving, he vocalized his wish to meet the master at some point, and the clerk pointed to a man with one leg wrapped up sitting across the room. According to an interview with Joe recorded in 1958, he was in the publishing office of John Stark purchasing some of Joplin's more recent works in late 1907. ![]() Lamb had only recently been exposed to the classic rags of the "King of Ragtime," but quickly took to not only learning them, but emulating them in his own work as well. He considered his relationship with Sparks more of a friendship than a business partnership, and made at least one visit to the publisher and his family sometime after he had left college. As was a common practice of the time in an effort to boost the composers listed in a catalog, Lamb was also published under at least two other pseudonyms, Harry Moore and Earl West. Some were issued using the name of more classical and Germanic sounding Josef F. Most of these submissions were not published until well after Lamb had left Canada. Sparks in Toronto, simply because he wanted to see them in print. Most of these pieces were sold outright at low prices ($5 to $50) to publisher Harry H. Perhaps his most interesting early song was Three Leaves of a Shamrock, which discussed the difficult topic of miscegenation, in this case the marriage of a Irish man to a black woman. Other unusual works included Celestine Waltzes and Lilliputian's Bazaar. Given that Joe's exposure to real ragtime was somewhat limited during his time in Canada, it underscores his musical sensibilities that he was able to turn out a piece of the quality of Walper House Rag in 1903, and a 1905 follow-up, Ragged Rapids Rag. ![]()
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