Alexander's Ragtime Band, written by Irving Berlin, was published March 18, 1911. It is considered a sequel to Alexander and his Clarinet, which he co-wrote with Ted Snyder in 1910 but it was a much bigger hit. It sold a million copies of sheet music in one year.
Of course, with success comes controversy. It was alleged that Berlin did not write the song but was written by Lukie Johnson, a pianist who denied the claim. Then it was claimed that Berlin stole the music from Scott Joplin, from his opera Treemonisha, although it was registered for a copyright two months after Alexander's Ragtime Band. Joplin passed away in 1917 still convinced his work had been stolen.
It was played on the Titanic while it was sinking.
In the years since its publication, it has been covered by many different artists including Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, the Andrews Sisters and Ella Fitzgerald who won a Grammy for her Berlin anthology in 1959.
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