John Stillwell Stark

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"Sensation", Joseph Lamb's first rag published under John Stark's label.

John Stillwell Stark (April 11, 1841 - November 20, 1927) was a United States publisher of ragtime music. He is best known for publishing and promoting the music of Scott Joplin.

John Stark was the eleventh of twelve children born to Adin Stark and Eleanor Stillwell Stark of Shelby County, Kentucky. He grew up in Gosport, Indiana, and served in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War, where he played the bugle. He married Sarah Ann Casey and raised a family, earning his living as a farmer, first in Indiana and then in Missouri. Eventually he tired of farming and went into the new business of ice-cream making, and to further supplement his income, began selling organs and pianos. In 1885 he settled in Sedalia, Missouri, and entered the music business full-time, founding John Stark and Son with his then 15-year old son William.

It was in 1899 in Sedalia that he heard Scott Joplin play The Maple Leaf Rag, and bought the number for fifty dollars plus royalties. It was a prosperous arrangement for both of them. A million copies were eventually sold, which enabled Stark to open an office in St. Louis, Missouri (and later New York City), and Joplin to engage in composing for a living. Over the next two decades, Stark published and promoted the "classic" style rag pioneered by Joplin and which included Joseph Lamb, James Scott, Arthur Marshall, Paul Pratt, Artie Matthews, Robert Hampton, J. Russel Robinson, and Etilmon J. Stark (his son).

After his wife died in 1910, Stark closed the New York office and returned to St. Louis. By this time New York's Tin Pan Alley was dominating ragtime music sales. He continued to bring out new rags until 1922, well after ragtime had succumbed to jazz, which Stark despised. He died in St. Louis in 1927.