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Clarence H. Woods (1888—1956)According to Blesh and Janis (1959), Clarence Woods was a ragtime composer and performer from Carthage, Missouri. He was a contemporary of James Scott, who also lived in Carthage from 1901 to 1906. The Dumars Music Company, where James Scott worked and played, published Clarence Woods' Meteor March in the early fall of 1903. [Blesh & Janis, pp. 113-4] Blesh and Janis state that three of Woods' compositions were found in the collection of Arkansas ragtime player and publisher, Emil Seidel, when they interviewed him in the early 1950s. Two of these rags are found in the collection, Classic Piano Rags (1973). They are Slippery Elm Rag (1912), published by The Bush and Gerts Piano Co., Dallas, Texas, and Sleepy Hollow Rag (1918), published by Will L. Livernash Music Co., Kansas City, Mo. According to "Perfessor" Bill Williams, Clarence H. Woods was born on June 19, 1888 in Adams Co., Ohio, and died on September 30, 1956. Woods was raised "in the midst of a hotbed of ragtime in southwest Missouri as he grew up. … In his late teens, Woods started traveling outside of Missouri into Oklahoma and Texas, playing for stage plays, vaudeville olios, silent movies, and other accompanist positions. … In his later years, he led an orchestra, became a radio entertainer, and started composing more. His last pieces were written in his capacity of composer/arranger for the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus from the early 1940s to the 1950s, where he also performed on the calliope." Woods wrote the music to the Graveyard Blues in 1916 with John S. Caldwell writing the lyrics. Perfesser Bill lists three other compositions by Clarence Woods: The
Worried Blues [w/Le Roy Williams] (1916), Who's Been Playin' Papa 'Round
Here While I've ReferencesRudi Blesh and Harriet Janis, They All Played Ragtime, Grove Press, 1959. LCCC # 59-13575 Marvin L. VanGilder, "James Scott." in Ragtime, Its History, Composers, and Music, ed. by John Edward Hasse, Shirmer Books, 1985, LCCC #84-13952 Classic Piano Rags: Complete Original Music for 81 Rags, selected and with an introduction by Rudi Blesh, Dover Publications, 1973. Express permission is granted to use all or part of this webpage content in the Wikipedia Article on Clarence Woods. |