Ragtime: The Easy Winners

I get the feeling Scott Joplin was not "all work and no play" as some of the books written on his life would suggest. With his success on Maple Leaf, he probably had some walking-around money, and he probably spent some of it going to or wagering on sporting events. The sheet music cover of this next piece, The Easy Winners, written in 1901, shows forms of competition, like football, cricket, sailing, and horse racing. There is a carefree feeling to this rag, as if going to these events were well deserved R&R.