"I wanted to keep my music in my private life. I didn't want to make any money on my things. I only wanted to see them published because my dream was to be a great ragtime composer."

-Joseph Lamb, Ragtime Composer

Joseph Lamb is known to be the last of the three "Great Fathers of Ragtime." Alongside Joplin and Scott, Joseph Lamb was certainly a musical rarity. Born in Montclair, New Jersey on December 6, 1887, Lamb was very heavily influenced musically by his two sisters, who were classical pianists. Taking no formal lessons himself, Lamb picked up piano by watching his sisters and studying musical scores. In a way, Lamb was starting his musical studies from scratch, rather than relying on previous musical studies.

In 1907, Lamb submitted his first ragtime score for publication to John Stark, also the publisher for Scott Joplin. Although this score was rejected (politely, of course), Lamb and Stark still kept in contact, and in 1908, Lamb's first published score, Sensation- A Rag, was released. Lamb would go on to write several more songs in his career.

What made Joseph Lamb such an interesting composer was that not only was he a self-taught pianist, but he had a talent of discovering a composer's style and giving his compositions a similar style. This is a technique which made his pieces much like Joplin's. Another interesting fact was that Lamb was white, not a negro, yet his pieces were not like those of Tin Pan Alley compositions. Lamb's Ragtime pieces were authentic Ragtime, not a cheap imitation. This fact leads into an interesting point. Ragtime pieces were not "Negro" pieces anymore, but "American" pieces. The Ragtime style had become an "American," not ethnic, music style.