The Entertainer (rag)

For other songs, see The Entertainer (disambiguation).

The Entertainer
by Scott Joplin
The front cover of "The Entertainer"'s sheet music. It has a green background and in the center is a red ink drawing of a caricatured African-American performer on stage in top hat and tails
First edition cover of "The Entertainer"
FormRagtime, two step
PublishedDecember 29, 1902; 121 years ago (December 29, 1902)
PublisherJohn Stark & Son
DurationTypically 3:53
Live performance of "The Entertainer" in 2007

"The Entertainer" is a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin.[1]

It was sold first as sheet music by John Stark & Son of St. Louis, Missouri,[2] and in the 1910s as piano rolls that would play on player pianos.[1] The first recording was by blues and ragtime musicians the Blue Boys in 1928, played on mandolin and guitar.[1]

As one of the classics of ragtime, it returned to international prominence as part of the ragtime revival in the 1970s, when it was used as the theme music for the 1973 Oscar-winning film The Sting. Composer and pianist Marvin Hamlisch's adaptation reached No. 3 on the Billboard pop chart and spent a week at No. 1 on the easy listening chart in 1974.[3]

The Recording Industry Association of America ranked it at No. 10 on its "Songs of the Century" list.[1]

  1. ^ a b c d Sullivan, Steve (May 12, 2017). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings. Vol. 3. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 32–33. ISBN 9781442254497.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Jasen and Tichenor was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2002). Top Adult Contemporary: 1961–2001. Record Research. p. 110. ISBN 0-89820-149-7.