Maple Leaf Rag Maple Leaf Rag The "Maple Leaf Rag" (copyright registered on September 18, 1899) is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's early works, and became the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. It is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces. As a result Joplin was called the "King of Ragtime". The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life. Despite ragtime's decline after Joplin's death in 1917, the "Maple Leaf Rag" continued to be recorded by many well-known artists. The ragtime
Maple Leaf Rag performed on phonograph records six times in each of the three decades after its first publication. In 1930, it was featured in the gangster movie classic, "The Public Enemy". "Maple Leaf Rag" was the Joplin piece found most often on 78 rpm records. In November 1970, Joshua Rifkin released a recording called "" on the classical label Nonesuch, which featured as its first track the "Maple Leaf Rag". It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for September 28, 1974 has the record at number 5, with