A tale of two ragtime festivals (Part 2)

Just going on how the Saturday session of this year's Ragtime to Riches Festival went, I had high hopes about the Sunday leg- the 7-14-2019 turn at Omaha's First Central Congregational United Church of Christ.

In a nutshell, we didn't get the kind of crowd that assembled at the Pink Poodle Steakhouse the day before.

But all four of those who paid to come to see the First Central leg of R to R 2019 still had fun.

At 2:00 PM (Central time), I was supposed to give a workshop. 

I gave it, all right...but it wasn't the one I hoped to conduct.

Ever since last year, I've been wanting to showcase some of the work of four ragtime composers: Sadie Koninsky (1879-1952), Charlotte Blake (1885-1979), Julia Niebergall (1886-1968), and May Aufderheide (1888-1972).

I brought notes with me.

Yours truly forgot to bring sheet music.

So...I went the autobiographical route instead. (Next year, I want to build my concert around works like Sadie's "Eli Green's Cakewalk," Julia's "Hoosier Rag," May's "Dusty," and Charlotte's "That Poker Rag." And leave the workshop to another performer.)

Speaking of concert...Faye Ballard was the first to give one at this year's R to R.

Hers was a workshop in itself; the Champaign, IL native started her concert with favorites "The Entertainer," "Puttin' on the Ritz," "Sailin' Away on the Henry Clay," and "It Had to Be You."

The former University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana office manager put her tribute to ragdom's Big Three smack dab in the middle: Scott Joplin's "Pineapple Rag," James Scott's "Frog Legs Rag," and Joseph Lamb's "Cleopatra Rag." 

Faye went ahead and did one of May's followups to "Dusty" ("The Thriller") and followed it up with Adaline Shepherd's "Pickles and Peppers." "Raggity Rag" and "12th Street Rag" closed Faye's sixth R to R concert out.

Faye's mom, Erma, gave me the inspiration for my own concert.

Last year, Erma wanted to hear "Angry," a 1925 hit for a singer-pianist named Art Gillham, from me. I didn't have the sheet music with me at the time.

Fixed that here in 2019.

Matter of fact, my version of "Angry" led off a concert consisting of tunes whose titles have just one word apiece: Fellow 1925 hits "Cecilia" and "Collegiate," two compositions from 1927 ("Chloe" and a tune that somebody should've had a hit record with, "Beautiful"), 1920's "Margie," and two rags- Nellie M. Stokes' 1906 "Snowball" and another piece Scott J. came up with in 1902, "Cleopha." 

I felt better about my concert than my workshop, I'll tell you that. I'm glad the concert worked out.

Marty Mincer accompanying Buster Keaton's 1920 short, "One Week," worked out great.

We were hoping Erma and Faye would come back for the 7:00 PM showing of "One Week," and Marty vamped for a while so that the Two Ballards could see the film in its entirety.

Oh, well...

But the audience enjoyed "One Week..." as well as Marty's handling of the music.

The apple farmer from Hamburg, IA had time left in his set to fire off his version of "The Entertainer" before he took R to R 15.0 out in style with "The Stars and Stripes Forever."

Well...now it's back to the drawing board to get the word out about Ragtime to Riches 2020.

Hope you can make it!

I've Got Some Really Good News and Some Very Bad News

First, the very bad news:

Only six tickets were sold for this year's Ragtime to Riches Festival, held at Omaha's First Central Congregational United Church of Christ. (Last year, the Great Plains Ragtime Society sold thirteen ducats.)

Now here's the really good news:

All the attendees really enjoyed themselves at this past Sunday's event.

Admittedly, 7-10-2016 was a scorcher here in the River City. (7-12-2015- the day of the previous R to R Festival- turned out to be hot outside here in Nebraska's largest city, too.) 

Well, some things were different about the twelfth R to R. One of the differences was...a new workshop presenter. 

2016 represented Faye Ballard's first year of giving a Ragtime to Riches workshop. This year's topic was one that one of the 2006 performers, Nan Bostick (one of the best ragtime historians who ever lived), touched on: "Women in Ragtime." 

And like Nan's presentation from a decade ago, Faye's presentation hit the spot. 

The Champaign, IL native presented a dozen rags by women composers. (Did you know that at least 500 women wrote one rag or more apiece during the 1899-1917 period?) 

For me, some of the standouts in Faye's workshop were "The Allen Glide," written by Louise Allen in 1915; "Chicken Chowder," penned a decade earlier by a St. Louis teenager named Irene Giblin; Adeline Shepard's rousing "Pickles and Peppers;" "The Thriller," a 1909 May Aufderheide rag; and a 1907 number, Julia Lee Niebergall's "Hoosier Rag."

When it came time to change from workshop presenter to concert performer, Faye switched the focus to some of ragtime's men composers. First up was "The Harlem Rag," the Tom Turpin piece that was the first published rag written by an African-American composer; then 1899's "Original Rags," the first of five Scott Joplin numbers the recently-retired office manager from Central Illinois played at this year's R to R. 

Faye didn't leave the other two members of ragtime's Big Three behind; she turned in James Scott's "Frog Legs Rag" and Joseph Lamb's "Ragtime Nightingale."

Then she gave two examples of what rag pianists would play in the "cutting contests" of that 1899-1917 period: "It Had to Be You" and "Mack the Knife," both of which actually were written in the 1920s...long after the Ragtime Era ended. 

Faye wrapped it all up by coming up with a fine, fine version of "Twelfth Street Rag." 

I was scheduled to go up at 4:15 PM (Central time)...but I ended up deciding to start my own concert at 4:30 PM after helping Marty Mincer get set up for the anchor leg of R to R 2016. (We'll take a look at the anchor leg later!)

Actually...my turn at bat had a head start, preceding the workshop by ten minutes, the better to help out a festival fan who needed to attend her oldest grandson's birthday party. 

So I wrapped up the festival's open-piano session with my first two concert selections: "In the Good Old Summertime" and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans."

Once the clock ticked 4:30 PM, I picked my own concert thread back up and continued to focus on tunes I'd done in competition at the event Faye serves as its coordinator: The World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival.

Mindful of the fact that the Illinois-turned-Mississippi competition started out as a fundraiser for the Monticello (IL) Railway Museum, and thinking about how contestants initially had to choose a rail-related song among their selections, I offered up "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad..." one of just two numbers I'd been able to play as a finalist (the year was 1994).

In addition, George Giefer's 1899 winner "Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder?" worked out fine (well, at least the audience thought so); so did my closer, "In My Merry Oldsmobile."

This concert included three rags: Charles Hunter's 1899 "Tickled to Death," W.C. Polla's 1904 "Funny Folks," and E. Warren Furry's only rag of consequence, his 1902 "Robardina Rag."

And this machine operator from here in Omaha (by way of Des Moines, IA) called an audible, replacing would-be selection "Grand March (from 'Aida')" with "Take Your Girlie to the Movies (If You Can't Make Love at Home)."

Speaking of movies...the R to R anchor leg was a movie. 

For the first time in R to R history, we'd show a silent film. In this case, it was Harold Lloyd's 1920 winner "Get Out and Get Under." 

And instead of giving a conventional concert, Marty was in town to cue the movie. 

With Marty (the apple farmer from Hamburg, IA) providing the DVD, some friends from the church I go to providing a DVD projector, and First Central itself coming up with a DVD player, we were ready to go. 

We didn't even need a screen.

The DVD projector went on top of the church's turn-of-the-20th-Century Anderson & Newton upright piano and was aimed at one of the blank walls at the church's Memorial Hall.

That setup worked out fine. 

Marty's accompaniment (on the church's turn-of-the-21st-Century Yamaha grand piano) was right on. (He even threw some post-1920 wrinkles in there, and also pulled out a song from 1962- "Puff, the Magic Dragon-" during a scene where Harold was lighting up a cigarette.)

"Get Out and Get Under" was some kind of hilarious. 

Now if we'd been able to get more people to come to First Central this past Sunday. 

I'm thinking of some projects that can get more people (especially people here in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area) to check out the R to R Festival...and help keep old-time piano alive.

If you've got any suggestions, feel free to pass them along. (Nope...giving up isn't an option!)

It's time for some really good news and some very GOOD news.

Raising the Bar

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes continued to come to the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s.

With the contest about to embark on its fourth year as a Decatur, IL event (its fourth year as an indoor attraction after twelve of them taking place outdoors in Monticello, IL), the Monticello Railway Museum decided to pull out.

With that, a new group was needed to put the C&F on...and so, in March 1990, the Old-Time Music Preservation Association (OMPA) was put together. Its purpose, besides overseeing the contest, was to promote the very first form of popular music to ever come out of these United States. 

All you needed to become a member of OMPA (besides a love of old-time music) was, at first, an annual fee of $20. And, if you forked over that fee, you'd also get a newsletter called The Old Piano Roll News. 

Two months after the organization began, its first major order of business was to ultimately hand six cash prizes (and two championship trophies) to the six most deserving of twenty 1990 OTPP hopefuls- fifteen Regular Division performers and five Junior Division contestants. (In those days, all the JD pianists competed for just one cash prize.)  

The Junior Division field that year was almost a family affair (or Family Affair, if you will) thanks to the presence of Tom, Katie, and Carrie Drury...but they and Aaron George couldn't prevent the Dax Baumgartner Express from chugging to a third straight title (and a berth in the Regular Division the next year).

Speaking of Regular Division...two of the contestants came back to the festivities after a long stretch of time away: Bruce Petsche (he won it all in 1980) and Faye Ballard (she almost won it all in 1976...as a twelve-going-on-thirteen-year-old). Plus, as was the case in 1988, the Two Kellers (Sue and her mother Betty) were in search of the Traveling Trophy. Lillian Nelson, Marcy Fruchter, Fran Stowe, and Fletcher St. Cyr were first-time contestants, and they were after the Big Dough.

What's more, Neil Moe was trying to become the first Junior Division titleholder to snag a Regular Division championship. 

"Perfessor" Bill Edwards, Marty Mincer, Therese Bradisse, Mark Lutton, and Lorraine Pantalena all came back.

Taslimah Bey didn't.

Paul Gronemeier didn't, either.

Neither did the reigning RD champion, Julie McClarey.

Her and husband Steve's family was growing...otherwise, Julie might've won the 1990 Reg crown.

That crown went to Marty, an apple farmer from Hamburg, IA...and he became the first Hawkeye Stater to bag OTPP's top prize, with Bill, Sue, Neil, and Betty also getting RD prize money. (And Marty won it all in his grandfather's band uniform.)

By the way...it's a great time to tell you that, if you're going to compete in OTPP, you've got to put on a costume. You've got to compete in something people generally wore during the 1880-1929 period.

This means that men contestants have generally worn period suits, tuxedos, and- more often than not- that familiar white shirt-vest-bow tie-slacks-arm garter combination (the outfit I like to call "bartender's duds"). Sometimes, the OTPP men have added hats to the outfits. 

And another exception besides Marty's band uniform (that actually was his granddad's) was the overalls Dale Wells once competed in.

Women contestants usually have donned those long, long dresses from pioneer days or from the turn of the 20th Century...or they'd put on those flapper dresses (or gowns) from the 1920s. 

And some OTPP women have worn the bartender's duds themselves...and Jennifer Booker once competed in overalls, while Taslimah went at it in a tuxedo.  

In 1991, fifteen pianists total did their thing at Decatur's Holiday Inn Conference Hotel (the venue's then name)...and all but three were in the adult division. (Dax wasn't one of the RDs...and neither was Sue. And that made the '91 competition a one-Keller event, thanks to Betty's presence as a competitor.)

The JD field consisted of newcomers, two of whom we'd be hearing from for years to come. That year, Kris Becker finished third in the Junior Division, Marty Sammon (that's right, blues fans- THAT Marty Sammon) came out second best, and Adam Downey took Dax' place as the best JD ragtimer.

And Adam would go on to his own three-year run at the top of the younger division.

With Sue no longer competing (and, instead, getting ready to embark on a long run of serving OTPP in many other ways- especially as a contest judge), Dale slipped in as one of the 1991 RD finalists; in the process, he joined Betty, Mark, Marty M., and the ol' Perfessor as the Top Five. 

This time, the computer programer from the DC area swapped places with the apple farmer from Southwest Iowa...with Bill E. snatching the Big Trophy away from Marty M. 

The two of them became not just good friends, but GREAT ones (teaming up from time to time as The All-American Ragtime Boys), and Marty M. and Bill E. went into 1992- the second straight fifteen-player year- having old-time piano fans wondering which man would reign supreme in the Regular Division.

Then Paul G. ended his two-year hiatus from OTPP...and he was joined by Reg newcomers Ginny Kaiser and Brian Holland (sorry, Motown fans...not THAT Brian Holland). Meanwhile, Doris Barnes ended a seven-year stay away from the contest.  

In the Junior Division, Adam D. and Marty S. competed against three newcomers, one of whom we'd be hearing about for years to come: Ryan Casteel, a Missourian named Max Schiltz, and a Nebraskan named Julie Ann Smith.

Julie Ann came within three points of derailing Adam in 1992...but she'd go on to make a name for herself another way. Now known as Julie Smith Phillips, she's one of the world's best-known harpists (and a noted harp instructor as well).

If you'd like to know more about this harp giant (she got started on the instrument the year before she made her OTPP debut), go to www.harpjas.com. 

As things turned out in the RDs for '92, Dale and Mark kept their places among the division's Top Five...and Marty Mincer came out ahead of Bill Edwards.

And Paul Gronemeier came out ahead of everybody and got the crown he'd been after. 

You could bet that Paul was going to come back for 1993...and he did. It was a year in which the field ballooned to nineteen contestants- five JDs and fourteen RDs. What's more, eight newcomers (all but one in the Reg Division) fueled the field's growth.

The lone new JD'er for 1993, Dalton Ridenhour, would come back to Decatur for more. And of the seven RD newcomers, only Bob Milne had any real name recognition in old-time piano coming into that year's OTPP. And like Dalton, Bob would come back to the contest...but in Bob's case, not to compete. (I loved his workshops.)

Richard Ramsey, Chuck Bregman, Patty Davis, David Galster, Erma Ryan, and I rounded out the rookie field. There we were, thirteen RDs trying to take Paul's long-sought crown away...and four JDs trying to prevent Adam's clean sweep (something Julie Ann almost did a year earlier).

While I stank out the Holiday Inn, Bob lived up to his reputation as a top-notch pianist...and Richard was a revelation.

Richard and Bob joined Bill, Marty M., and Mark in the RD finals...and in the process, pushed Paul out of the money line. Somebody else would win the contest's top cash prize- now $1,200- as well as the Traveling Trophy.

Marty M. was that someone else...and he became the first champion in either division to get the crown back after watching someone else take it away. And that made him the OTPP version of Muhammad Ali.

About 24 hours earlier, Adam D. punched his ticket into the Regular Division. But his closest competitor this time wasn't Julie Ann S. or Marty S.

After sitting out 1992, Kris came back to place second in the JDs.

I didn't do as well as I'd hoped (all the juniors beat me)...but I learned a lot from that first OTPP experience (including learning to play "Tickled to Death" after hearing the then thirteen-year-old Julie Ann Smith nail it). 

Even so, Dale, Brian, and other contestants- as well as other OTPP fans- encouraged me to come back for 1994.

I did.

Dalton did, too.

In fact, he and I were the only two 1993 newcomers who also weighed in as competitors the following year. 

Marty M., Bob M., Bill E., and Brian H. came to Decatur's Holiday Inn during 1994's Memorial Day weekend...but not to compete. (Matter of fact, Bob and Bill ran some workshops that weekend. And theirs were the very first workshops in contest history.)

Meanwhile, the field shrank enormously...to ten, five in each division. On top of that, each division boasted just one newbie.

The lone first-time JD contestant this time was Cecilia Fleisher (whose version of "American Beauty" I really loved)...and the only new RD contestant blew everyone away.

Quebec native Mimi Blais came into the 1990s as a classical pianist. She got the ragtime bug soon after, and then...and then...ended a four-year absence from performing arts centers to launch a concert called "Around Scott Joplin."

That did it. 

Thanks to playing ragtime, Mimi received the acclaim that couldn't come from playing classical music...and by 1994, she was ready to see what she could do in the best-known ragtime competition in America.

Mimi skunked everybody. Matter of fact, the last competition piece she played, Scott Joplin's "The Crush Collision March," nailed it for me. 

You talk about unstoppable!

It was a year I'll never forget...not only because it was the year all five Regular Division hopefuls (Mimi, Mark, Dale, Adam D., and I) made it to the semifinals AND finals, but, most importantly, it was when Marty Sammon became the Junior Division kingpin...and Mimi Blais raised the bar exponentially in the Regular Division.

Out of the Rain

The 1980s were an era of big events and political stunts; an era of style over substance.

C. Everett Koop (Ronald Reagan's surgeon general) wanted to wear his old uniform from his days in the Navy to his new job...and because of that, all subsequent top doctors have had to don the fruit salad. 

There was Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No!" campaign to fight drug abuse. (And, by the way...alcohol is a drug, too. And that's a whole other post in itself.)

And what about the "effort" to prove the value of teachers in America...AKA the program to send one into space? 

About four months after Francis Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe- said teacher- lost their lives in the Challenger explosion, the "Hands Across America" event took place. 

It didn't help that the 1986 Memorial Day weekend was chilly and misty outside in Monticello, IL. (Monticello was one of the "Hands Across America" stops.)

And it ultimately helped drive the Monticello Railway Museum to look for a new place to hold its top fundraiser, the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest. For '86, the organization used Monticello High School's football field as the contest venue rather than the museum itself.

It was too much to take for everybody...so, the MRM made The Decision.

The organization took the whole show to the then Holiday Inn...in Decatur, IL.

And for the first time, OTPP wouldn't have to directly fight atmospheric conditions.

That first indoor iteration of Ted Lemen's claim to fame drew eighteen contestants, with all but two competing in the Regular Division. 

So while Neil Moe only had to get past Cathy Wamsley to become the first three-time Junior Division champion, all sixteen Regular Division hopefuls advanced to the division's 1987 semifinals. Three of the adult contestants were newcomers to OTPP who'd make names for themselves in later years: Dorothy Baldwin, Betty Keller, and...the "Perfessor" himself, Bill Edwards.

And, as things turned out, Bill and Dorothy joined Linda Harmon (a newcomer from the previous year) and longtime participant Paul Gronemeier in the contest finals...won by a man who, at that time, made the Washington, DC area his stomping grounds: Ron Trotta.

As the event's final outdoor Regular champ, Ron staged a near-Garrison finish (instead of standing in last place in the 1986 RD prelims, he was fifth; Ron moved up to third at the end of the RD semis). A year later, Ron started out in first place once the 1987 RD first round came to an end and stayed on top until he was officially declared the contest's first indoor Reg champion. 

OTPP '87 was a success.

With that in mind, the contestant field for 1988 jumped up to 23...twenty RDs and three JDs. 

In the Junior field, only Cathy had a 1986-87 connection...but she still wasn't able to connect with the division's top prize. Neither did Neil's sister, Mary Ann.

Mary Ann and Cathy could only watch as Dax Baumgartner inaugurated his own three-year stay at the head of the Junior Division. 

Mary Ann's brother was part of the activity that continued to reshape the Regular Division- a contingent that saw Ed and Janet Kaizer come back for some more prize money (and in Janet's case, a chance to snatch the Traveling Trophy out of Ron's grip and get the statue back for herself). Dale Wells came back, too.

To top it all off, five newcomers who'd go on to become huge names in old-time piano made the trip to Decatur: Dick Zimmerman, Todd Robbins, Jim Radloff, Marty Mincer,

and Betty's daughter Sue.

 

And after two rounds, it looked as if Sue (instead of Janet) would be the one to give Ron a taste of his own medicine.

But the ex-math teacher from the Nation's Capital became the third undefeated RD champion...after breaking a semifinal-round tie with Sue Keller. And Janet, Paul, Linda, and Marty joined Ron and Sue as Reg finalists.

1989 saw other OTPP changes besides a Regular Division field without Ron Trotta and his near-Garrison finishes. First of all, the contest would- for the first time- employ four judges (instead of the three of previous years). 

Second, two new JD contestants (Jason Planck and Christina Sparks) would try to stop Dax from successfully defending his newly-won crown. 

Plus, in the RD, seven newcomers would join in the hunt (nineteen performers strong) to hoist the Traveling Trophy. Three of the biggest names were a Michigander named Taslimah Bey,

a Bay Stater named Mark Lutton,

and...an Illinoisan named Julie McClarey.

Julie had the shortest trip of them all: She and her husband Steve lived on the other side of town from Decatur's Holiday Inn.

Five cash prizes (not the six of 1986-88) awaited the nineteen Regular Division hopefuls...and after missing out in '88, "Perfessor" Bill made sure he'd get a check from the contest in his third try. Marty, Sue, and- you probably guessed it- Paul were 1989 RD finalists, too.

In fact, 1989 represented Paul Gronemeier's best chance since 1980 to jump into the OTPP winner's circle. (He finished second to Bruce Petsche in '80.)

But Julie McClarey's near-perfect technique and enthusiastic performances prevented Paul from getting his hands on the Big Dough.

And, as things turned out, the McClareys could really use the championship money.

After all, Steve's and Julie's family was growing.

What kind of effect would a growing family have on Julie's chance to defend her newly-earned title?

I'll have the answer when I come back for Part Three. (Stay tuned!)

Oh, by the way...a Bay Stater is someone from Massachusetts.

Everybody Still Had a Great Time

Two weeks ago, the ninth annual Ragtime to Riches Festival took place at Omaha's First Central Congregational United Church of Christ.

It would've been three weeks ago today...except for a scheduling conflict that allowed an organization called Omaha Chamber Music to wrap up a four-consecutive-Sunday stint on 7-7-2013 (the date this year's R to R was originally scheduled).

But...as things turned out...yours truly didn't check with First Central's staff earlier than 6-5-2013, the day yours truly came to the church at 36th and Harney to pay for rental of the church's Memorial Hall.

So...the church staff gave us 7-14-2013 (and at the same time, the Great Plains Ragtime Society snapped up 7-6-2014).

It worked out fine...even with the festival jumping right into the teeth of the Omaha Country Club hosting the 2013 men's US Senior Open, which said "hello" to the two biggest crowds to ever attend a sports event in person here in the city that gave us sports greats Bob Gibson, Gale Sayers, and Bob Boozer.

We sold eight tickets this time. Yeah, I know...that's a far cry from the 38 ducats GPRS sold last year and, as a result, got Ragtime to Riches out of the local shadows.

Nevertheless, everybody who came to R to R 9.0 had a great time.

And the crowd included four people who'd never attended the local ragtime fest before.

Plus: One of them's a student at Benson High School. (So there!)  

It started out, once the doors opened at 1:00 PM (Central time), with a workshop an hour later; it focused on the 1885-1899 period...the first fourteen years the United States had a real music-publishing industry (okay...the first fourteen years said industry was based in New York City, NY).  

One thing I found out in doing research for the R to R workshop was that many of the first big-name Tin Pan Alley songwriters were traveling salespersons before jumping into the music industry full blast. They sold sheet music when not selling clothes and other items...and eventually, they got the notion that they could write better than the composers whose work these dealers agreed to peddle.

One of them was Edward B. Marks, who got off the road in 1894 to hook up with another salesperson with a desire to write ditties, Joseph Stern.  

And with Charles K. Harris' 1892 monster "After the Ball" (only the first million-selling song ever written; it went on to sell six million pieces of sheet music) providing the yardstick, Marks and Stern got together to write Tin Pan Alley's next monster...1894's "The Little Lost Child."

TPA (so named because, according to legend, all those multiple old upright pianos getting played at the same time all over the Big Apple's music-publishing district- West 28th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues- sounded like tin pans being banged) originally specialized in sentimental, treacly ballads like "After the Ball" and "The Little Lost Child."

But as the 1890s started to draw to a close, Americans wanted to shake their hind ends...and Tin Pan Alley started to get the ragtime bug, thanks to two 1899 smashes: Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" and Abe Holzmann's "Smokey Mokes."

I shifted gears at a little after 3:05 PM, getting myself into concert mode. And, for the second straight year, I took a page from the book of the late Burns Davis and gave my own concert a theme.

After building my own 2012 show around some of 1912's top hits, I chose as my 2013 theme..."They All Died in 2012."

During the early 1990s, I got interested in the work someone from Phoenix, AZ (I think his name is Sherman Cohen) was doing linking the birthdates of big-name celebrities with the cuts that topped Billboard's US Pop charts the day each celebrity was born...and using the songs to predict what kind of lives the big names would end up leading. (For instance, the day Michael Jackson was born, the top pop hit in the US was "Little Star," by the Elegants. 'Nuff said.) 

Well, the audience at this year's R to R found out that "Peg o' My Heart," by a singer named Charles Harrison, was the Number One recording on 12-25-1913...Tony Martin's birthday. In addition, they learned that fellow singalong favorite "For Me and My Gal" was a chart-topper for one of the top duos of the World War 1 years, Van & Schenck. (The V&S version was #1 on 7-17-1917...Phyllis Diller's birthday.)

Today, we know Alma Gluck as the mother of Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (you might remember his two big TV series, 77 Sunset Strip and fellow ABC hit The FBI) and as the grandmother of Stephanie Zimbalist (who got to costar alongside Pierce Brosnan on the 1980s NBC hit Remington Steele).

But in her time, Gluck was one of the world's best-known opera singers. In 1915, she reached back to 1878 to turn James Bland's "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" into just the fourth million-selling recording in history.

And that cut was the top hit in the land on 4-10-1915...the day Harry Morgan was born. (That's right...the same Harry Morgan who got to work alongside Jack Webb on the 1967-1970 version of NBC's Dragnet, in addition to doing all kinds of other series...like CBS classics December Bride and M*A*S*H.) 

Toward the end of my time up there, I took a chance.

I ragged up a couple of post-TPA songs: 1963's "So Much in Love," which was the first big hit for the Tymes...and the top pop hit on 8-9-1963, the day Whitney Houston was born; and the next year's "A Hard Day's Night," one of the many, many Number Ones the Beatles racked up.

"A Hard Day's Night" made the list as a tribute to Beatles fan Jesse Lewis and the nineteen other Sandy Hook School children who, along with six teachers at the Newtown, CT facility, were gunned down 12-14-2012.

What's more, I got squeamish about performing the song that actually topped Billboard's US Pop chart on 6-30-2006, Jesse's birthday: "Hips Don't Lie," where Shakira teamed up with Wyclef Jean.

And I couldn't get off the stage without paying tribute to the late Nan Bostick, so I closed out with her first and best-known tune, 1974's "Bean Whistle Rag."

Nope...the sky didn't fall.

In lieu of a movie, we had a preview of the upcoming local showing of Luke Jerram's famous "Play Me, I'm Yours" art project. (Here in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area, ten painted old pianos will be placed at public spots all over the area for passersby to play...regardless of skill level. In fact, the exhibit will run locally from 8-24-2013 to 9-8-2013.) 

Ended up giving the oral presentation myself, then Nick Holle (that's right, THAT Nick Holle) and I got together to show a 60-minute compilation of "PMIY" videos culled from YouTube.

By the way...to learn more about Luke's claim to fame, just visit www.streetpianos.com. And for more local information about the exhibit, you can also log on to http://omahacreativeinstitute.org. (The Omaha Creative Institute did the lion's share of the heavy hitting that brought "PMIY" here.)

Speaking of fame...at 7:00 PM, Marty Mincer went up to bat.

And Marty was smacking homers all over the place. 

The apple farmer from Hamburg, IA showed why he took the Regular Division crown in 1990 and 1993 at Illinois' World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival...and the first proof was his rip-roaring version of an E.T. Paull march, "The Burning of Rome."

Later on in Marty's concert, he talked about how his grandmother got him started tickling those keys. It was the late 1960s, and she taught him how to play a piece called "Old Fiddle Tune."

He did it the conventional way, then ragged it up...only to get an admonishment from Grandma: "Don't you ever play that piece like that again!"

Then Marty went back to playing "Old Fiddle Tune" the way it was written.

And, 44 years later, he does "OFT" the same three ways. (And it brings the house down every time!)

Marty writes 'em, too. His biggest one came together in 1989 because, at that time, he owned a 1964 Studebaker (remember Studebaker automobiles?) that kept breaking down.

And he captured that in his "The Mechanic's Rag." (Its subtitle: "A Well-Tooled Piece." On top of that, the instruction on the first page tells you to play this one "with great repair.")

Marty kept it going all through his concert, burning through "A Bag of Rags," Mark Janza's "Aviation Rag," George Botsford's "Black and White Rag," and Scott Joplin's other Monster, "The Entertainer." (When you take out "The Entertainer" and "Maple Leaf Rag," you find his other rags were monsters.)  

Toward the end of the show, Marty led a singalong; after he sang and played "Sioux City Sue," he (and I) led the audience into "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "When You're Smiling," and "Side by Side."  

Then his rollicking versions of "Tiger Rag" (with multiple false endings) and "Show Me the Way to Go Home" (he handled the vocals, too) brought the 2013 version of Ragtime to Riches to a close.

And, when all was said and done, the festival took in $100, which went to the Great Plains Ragtime Society...not bad for the situation at hand.  

Well...it's off to work on the 2014 version of R to R. 

Now...to find out how to get another movie into the festival...or something...