Joseph Lamb

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For Sir Joseph Lamb, 1930s Staffordshire politician, see Joseph Lamb (politician)

Joseph Lamb, ca. 1915

"Sensation", Joseph Lamb's first rag published under John Stark's label.

"The Top Liner Rag", from 1916.

Joseph Francis Lamb (December 6, 1887 – September 3, 1960) was a noted American composer of ragtime music.

Lamb was born in Montclair, New Jersey. He taught himself to play the piano, and was very taken with the early ragtime publications of Scott Joplin. In 1908 Lamb was purchasing the latest Joplin and James Scott sheet music in the New York City offices when he met his idol Joplin. Joplin was favorably impressed with Lamb's compositions, and recommended him to classical ragtime publisher John Stark. Stark published Lamb's music for the next decade, starting with "Sensation". Lamb, of Irish descent, was the only non-African American of the "Big Three" composers of classical ragtime, the other two being Scott Joplin and James Scott.

Some of Lamb's best-regarded rags include:

"Sensation" (1908)
"American Beauty Rag" (1913)
"Ragtime Nightingale" (1914)
"Cleopatra Rag" (1915)
"The Top Liner Rag" (1916)
"Bohemia Rag" (1919)

"Bohemia Rag" was the last of Lamb's rags published before his death in 1960.

When popular music interest shifted from ragtime to jazz at the end of the 1910s, Lamb went to work for an accounting firm, only occasionally playing music as a hobby. With the revival of interest in ragtime in the 1950s, Lamb shared his memories of Joplin and other early ragtime figures with music historians. (Many were surprised to find that not only was he still living, but that he was white.) He also composed some new rags, brought out some of his old compositions that had never been published, and made some recordings.

Lamb died in Brooklyn, New York of a heart attack at age 72.

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