"The Entertainer" is a 1902 piano rag written by Scott Joplin and published by John Stark & Son. It rose to 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. Marvin Hamlisch's adaptation reached number 3 on the Billboard magazine Hot 100 music chart in 1974. Ironically, Scott Joplin's ragtime music was no longer popular during the 1930s, the period during which the film is set. In 1916, Joplin recorded The Entertainer on a piano roll on the Connorized label, along with his other ragtime pieces. That's one of the remarkable things about this tone, which is a recording of one of the original player piano rolls. Some things that cultures produce are worth preserving; uncle mikey thinks Mr. Joplin's work is one of those things.
