Ragtime (with Joplin's work in the forefront) has been cited as an American equivalent of minuets by Mozart, mazurkas by Chopin, or waltzes by Brahms. Subsequently, the film's rendering of Joplin's 1902 rag The Entertainer was a Top 5 hit in 1974. In 1973, the motion picture The Sting brought ragtime to a wide audience with its soundtrack of Joplin tunes. In 1971 Joshua Rifkin brought out a compilation of Scott Joplin's work which was nominated for a Grammy Award. A more significant revival occurred in the 1950s as a wider variety of ragtime styles of the past were made available on records, and new rags were composed, published, and recorded. First, in the early 1940s many jazz bands began to include ragtime in their repertoire and put out ragtime recordings on 78 rpm records. Ragtime fell out of favor as jazz claimed the public's imagination after 1917, but there have been numerous revivals since. For at least 12 years after its publication, the Maple Leaf Rag heavily influenced subsequent ragtime composers with its melody lines, harmonic progressions or metric patterns. The ragtime composer Scott Joplin became famous through the publication in 1899 of the Maple Leaf Rag and a string of ragtime hits that followed. Ragtime was a modification of the march made popular by John Philip Sousa, with additional polyrhythms typical of African music. Louis and New Orleans years before being published as popular sheet music for piano.

It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or 'ragged', rhythm. Ragtime (or rag-time) is a musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 18. Second edition cover of 'Maple Leaf Rag.' It is one of the most famous rags.

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