Galen Wilkes
Updated: 3 days ago
Some musicians are content to play the music of the past. Others study it, write about it, or collect the artifacts it left behind. Galen Wilkes decided to do all of those things—and then went a few steps further. Why merely listen to ragtime when you could resurrect an entire ragtime orchestra, organize an old-fashioned dance, stage a cakewalk contest, and record the whole affair on genuine wax cylinders?
For more than five decades, Wilkes has been one of ragtime's most energetic champions: a composer, pianist, arranger, historian, broadcaster, writer, lecturer, and producer whose enthusiasm for America's musical past seems almost inexhaustible. His interests reach far beyond the piano, encompassing silent films, early sound recordings, vaudeville, popular entertainment, and the colorful personalities who helped shape American culture around the turn of the twentieth century.
Yet amid all these pursuits, composing ragtime has remained an essential part of his creative life. His original piano works, ranging from traditional classic rags to novelty pieces, cakewalks, and syncopated waltzes, demonstrate that ragtime is not simply a historical curiosity. In the right hands, it remains a wonderfully expressive, playful, and thoroughly living musical language.
A Player Piano, a Vacuum Cleaner, and a Little Magic
Wilkes's fascination with the early twentieth century began in a rather unusual way—with a player piano and an ingenious bit of mechanical engineering.
When he was about three years old, a family friend named Jack Whitaker owned a player piano. Whitaker, an engineer who worked with Wilkes's father, had devised a clever system that allowed the instrument to play without anyone pumping its pedals. By connecting the piano's bellows to a vacuum cleaner concealed in the basement, he created what must have seemed to a young child like a marvelous self-playing machine.
Wilkes never forgot the experience. The mechanical wonder, the old-fashioned music, and the sensation of encountering another era helped plant the seeds of a lifelong fascination.
Music was already part of his surroundings. His father owned piano recordings, including honky-tonk performances and some ragtime, and Wilkes took piano lessons as a child. But his interests soon expanded beyond playing the instrument. He became fascinated by the sights, sounds, technology, and entertainment of an earlier America.
Growing up in southeastern Connecticut, Wilkes developed a particular interest in silent motion pictures. While still in high school, he began organizing screenings in libraries and other venues, introducing audiences to films that were already several decades old.
He enlisted the help of Jeanne McPartland, a pianist who had accompanied silent films during the 1920s. Her live performances became a major attraction. Wilkes also brought in Harold Pavey, who had appeared in silent films as a child, and film collector Leon Calanquin.
For a young enthusiast, this was an extraordinary opportunity. He wasn't merely studying history from books; he was meeting people who had actually lived it.
That approach—seeking out firsthand witnesses, preserving their stories, and sharing their experiences with audiences—would become a defining feature of his career.
Scott Joplin Opens the Door
The ragtime revival of the 1970s arrived at just the right moment for Wilkes.
When the 1973 film The Sting introduced Scott Joplin's music to an enormous new audience, Wilkes was among those captivated by its irresistible syncopations and elegant melodies. Joplin's music opened the door to an entire repertoire that had largely disappeared from mainstream musical life.
But Wilkes wasn't satisfied with listening to old recordings or collecting sheet music. He began composing his own rags.
Unlike many composers who follow a formal academic path, Wilkes developed his craft largely through independent study. Although he had childhood piano lessons and took some music courses in college, he never formally studied composition. He learned by doing—writing music, studying earlier composers, and gradually mastering the complications of musical notation.
Ragtime presented particular challenges. Its characteristic syncopations can look deceptively complicated on the printed page, and Wilkes had to teach himself how to notate those rhythms effectively.
What began as an attraction to Joplin eventually developed into a much broader appreciation of the music's many forms. Wilkes immersed himself in the work of Joseph Lamb, James Scott, and other ragtime pioneers, while exploring folk ragtime, cakewalks, novelty piano, stride, and related popular styles.
The result was a composer with a remarkably broad musical vocabulary—and an equally broad sense of humor.
The Reluctant Radio Personality
Interestingly, Wilkes's career as a ragtime broadcaster began with considerable hesitation.
While attending college in New York, he was approached about hosting a radio program devoted to ragtime. The prospect of going on the air was intimidating enough that he initially declined. Eventually, however, he reconsidered.
From 1976 to 1978, he hosted The Ragtime Years on WVHC on Long Island. The program allowed him to share music, research, and interviews while becoming acquainted with performers and personalities associated with the ragtime revival.
When he later moved to Los Angeles to pursue film studies, he probably thought his radio career was behind him.
Not quite.
Jazz musician Bob Ringwald—whose daughter Molly Ringwald would become a well-known actress—encouraged Wilkes to return to broadcasting. With Ringwald's help, Wilkes launched another program, It's Rag Time!, which ran from 1980 to 1987.
The Los Angeles show drew upon Southern California's thriving ragtime community. Guests included such performers and enthusiasts as Dick Zimmerman, Ian Whitcomb, Judy Carmichael, Jo Ann Castle, and Dennis Pash.
For Wilkes, radio became something more than an opportunity to play favorite recordings. It was a means of preserving knowledge, collecting recollections, and giving listeners a richer understanding of ragtime's history.
And as his collection of interviews, recordings, photographs, and historical materials continued to grow, so did his reputation as one of the field's dedicated researchers.
Composing Ragtime for a New Generation
For all his accomplishments as a historian and preservationist, Wilkes deserves equal attention for his original compositions.
His piano music draws upon the traditions of ragtime's golden age without simply reproducing them. He has written classic rags, folk rags, cakewalks, novelty pieces, stride-influenced works, and ragtime waltzes, often incorporating stylistic ideas associated with earlier composers.
Wilkes has compared his compositional approach to a chef preparing dishes from vintage recipes. The ingredients may be familiar, but the finished creation is his own.
His titles alone suggest a composer with an unusually vivid imagination. The Creeks of Missouri, Sedalia Stomp, Spanish Moss, Whippoorwill Hollow, Magnolia Rag, Redwood Rag, and Old Boston Post Road evoke landscapes and places associated with American history. Other works, including Puppy on the Piano, Horsefeathers, Pink Elephants, The Oyster Shimmy, and Mephistopheles' Two Step, reveal a decidedly mischievous streak.
There is considerable stylistic variety within this repertoire.
The Creeks of Missouri, composed in 1983, draws upon the character of early folk ragtime, while Whippoorwill Hollow, dating from 1985, reflects the melodic traditions associated with Joseph Lamb. The Oyster Shimmy, written in 1992, ventures into territory reminiscent of the syncopated language of Jelly Roll Morton. Daffodil offers a lighter, more lyrical character, demonstrating Wilkes's interest in the gentler side of early popular piano music.
His compositions also reveal a personal connection to the musicians whose work he admires.
Puppy on the Piano was written for Pauline Alpert, the celebrated novelty pianist whose dazzling performances helped define a distinctive chapter of American popular piano music. Horsefeathers was composed for Vee Lawnhurst, another accomplished pianist from the novelty era with whom Wilkes maintained a warm correspondence.
These were more than stylistic tributes. Wilkes had actually come to know both women, preserving their memories and exchanging stories and recordings with them.
Another composition, Raggedy Andy, was written for pianist Andrew Fielding, who reciprocated by composing a rag for Wilkes.
Such personal connections give Wilkes's music an appealing historical dimension. His pieces often represent a conversation across generations, linking contemporary ragtime composition with musicians who participated in the original traditions.
His works have been collected in several published folios, including Piano Rags, Authentic Ragtime, Piano Syncopations, and Piano Rhythm. He has also produced instructional works for beginning ragtime pianists and arrangements for children's orchestra, helping introduce the music to younger performers.
Perhaps the most striking demonstration of his standing among ragtime musicians is the recording Ragged Rhythm: A Phono-Tronic Collection.
Rather than recording an album of his compositions entirely by himself, Wilkes assembled seventeen performers to interpret seventeen of his works. The remarkable lineup includes Tom Brier performing Rx Rag, Reginald Robinson playing Redwood Rag, Sue Keller interpreting Last of the Ragtime Pioneers, Glenn Jenks performing Streets of Sedalia, Terry Waldo playing Baltimore Rag, John Arpin performing Whippoorwill Hollow, and Jeff Barnhart tackling The Oyster Shimmy.
The collection offers a fascinating opportunity to hear different musical personalities bring their interpretations to Wilkes's compositions.
It also demonstrates something important: his music has become part of the repertoire performed and enjoyed by ragtime musicians far beyond his own piano.
Ragtime Was Meant for Dancing!
By the middle of the 1980s, Wilkes had become increasingly concerned about something he observed in the ragtime revival.
The music was receiving serious attention, which was certainly welcome. But performances often consisted of audiences sitting quietly while a pianist played one rag after another.
That was only part of ragtime's story.
During its original heyday, ragtime had been inseparable from social dancing, theatrical entertainment, popular celebrations, and lively public gatherings. Much of that broader culture had disappeared from the modern revival.
Wilkes decided to bring it back.
In 1985, he began recruiting musicians for what became the Palm Leaf Ragtime Orchestra, an ensemble active from 1986 to 1991. He drew upon surviving period arrangements while preparing additional orchestrations of his own.
But the orchestra was only the beginning.
Wilkes organized ragtime balls in which audiences could do more than listen. They could actually dance to the music as people had generations earlier.
Period dances such as the two-step, one-step, grizzly bear, and turkey trot returned to the floor. Participants learned historical steps, dressed for the occasion, and rediscovered the social pleasures that had accompanied the original music.
The crowning attraction was the revival of the cakewalk contest, complete with an enormous prize cake.
The idea proved influential, inspiring similar activities at other ragtime gatherings and festivals.
For Wilkes, it was a way to return ragtime to something closer to its original environment: a place where music, movement, entertainment, and social life all belonged together.
Recording Ragtime the Really Old-Fashioned Way
If bringing back ragtime dances was an ambitious historical experiment, Wilkes's next venture was even more unusual.
In 1989, the Palm Leaf Ragtime Orchestra recorded a selection of period pieces on genuine wax cylinders, using equipment and techniques associated with the earliest days of commercial sound recording.
The project was suggested by Wilkes's friend Bruce Trummel, who possessed the necessary equipment and blank cylinders.
Recording was considerably more demanding than placing microphones in front of an orchestra.
There were no modern recording conveniences, and the process was entirely acoustic. Sound vibrations had to be transferred mechanically to a recording stylus, which engraved them into the wax. The musicians also had to accommodate the cylinders' approximately two-minute recording limit.
Wilkes selected pieces suitable for the process, and the orchestra often omitted musical repeats to fit the available time. Jim Wilke contributed spoken announcements in the style of early cylinder recordings.
Among the selections were Maple Leaf Rag, Peaceful Henry, The Grizzly Bear, Peaches & Cream, and Lassus Trombone.
The resulting recordings were later transferred and made available on CD.
It was a remarkable example of Wilkes's approach to musical history. Rather than merely describing how musicians recorded more than a century ago, he assembled an orchestra and actually did it.
Bringing Ragtime Back to New England
After years of activity on the West Coast, Wilkes turned his attention toward his native New England.
In 1993 and 1994, he organized the New England Ragtime Festival in Connecticut, drawing heavily upon regional musicians and offering audiences a combination of performances and historical presentations.
One especially memorable participant was Patricia Conn, daughter of the great ragtime composer Joseph Lamb.
At Wilkes's invitation, she agreed to speak about her father, sharing family recollections with an audience eager to learn more about one of ragtime's most important figures.
Her grandson performed several of Lamb's compositions as part of the presentation, making the occasion a particularly meaningful family connection to the music.
Wilkes later recalled that Conn had not previously given such a presentation, and that her appearance seemed to encourage her participation in other ragtime festivals.
The festival lasted two years. A third had been planned, but difficulties obtaining the necessary organizational help prevented it from taking place.
Nevertheless, the event reflected one of Wilkes's enduring priorities: preserving the personal memories of individuals whose firsthand connections to ragtime's original generation were rapidly disappearing.
The Historian Who Went Looking for the People
Wilkes's historical research has always involved considerably more than reading old books.
Over the decades, he has traveled to places associated with ragtime history, including Sedalia, St. Louis, Kansas City, Joplin, and other communities that played important roles in the music's development.
He has contacted composers' descendants, interviewed musicians, collected correspondence, and tracked down individuals whose recollections might otherwise have been lost.
Among those he came to know were pianist Pauline Alpert, novelty pianist Vee Lawnhurst, songwriter Harry Tobias, and members of Joseph Lamb's family. He also interviewed silent-film accompanists and organists, including Rosa Rio and Bob Mitchell.
Some encounters proved particularly memorable.
While visiting the former Kansas City home of ragtime composer E. Harry Kelly, Wilkes performed with the Etcetera String Band during a historical house tour. Several of Kelly's relatives happened to attend, giving Wilkes the unusual pleasure of performing music connected to the composer in the very house where he had lived.
His research has also made its way into print.
Wilkes contributed articles to The Rag Time Ephemeralist, including research into Joseph Lamb's later musical activities and discoveries relating to James Scott. He also prepared extensive liner notes for historical recordings issued by Basta Records and Pearl Records, helping place classic ragtime performances in a richer musical and historical context.
The work reflects a simple conviction: the more that can be documented today, the more future generations will have available tomorrow.
Remembering the Musicians Who Almost Disappeared
For Wilkes, historical preservation has extended even to the graveyards where ragtime's pioneers were laid to rest.
He has contributed to efforts to provide markers and memorials for figures who played important roles in the music's development.
These projects have included headstones for composers James Scott, Arthur Marshall, Edgar Settle, and Tom Turpin, as well as a memorial bench honoring Scott Joplin.
In 2024, he helped commemorate the historic cakewalk performer Doc Brown with a headstone.
Such efforts might seem far removed from composing piano music, but for Wilkes they are part of the same mission.
The music was created by real people, often with fascinating lives that deserve to be remembered. Preserving their stories, acknowledging their accomplishments, and marking the places connected with their lives helps ensure that they do not vanish into obscurity.
Silent Films, Edison Phonographs, and a Living Museum
Wilkes's enthusiasm for early American entertainment has never been confined to ragtime alone.
His knowledge of early cinema, vaudeville, illustrated songs, early sound technology, and popular culture has led to historical programs presented at museums, festivals, and cultural institutions.
He has explored everything from the nickelodeon theaters of the early twentieth century to the first experiments in synchronized sound motion pictures.
His presentations frequently feature historical recordings, projected images, and demonstrations of period equipment. One of his favorite instruments for bringing the past to life is a 1908 Edison cylinder phonograph, on which audiences can hear recordings reproduced through the technology of their own era.
He has also presented programs involving magic lanterns, the nineteenth-century projection devices that preceded motion pictures.
These demonstrations transform historical lectures into something much more immediate. Instead of simply discussing forgotten technologies and entertainments, Wilkes lets audiences experience them.
It is an approach that combines his three great interests: scholarship, preservation, and showmanship.
An American Original Keeping Ragtime Young
There is something wonderfully appropriate about Galen Wilkes spending so much of his life celebrating music that was already considered old-fashioned when he discovered it.
After all, ragtime itself was born from the collision of different musical traditions, irrepressible creativity, and an appetite for something new. It was never meant to be a museum piece.
Wilkes has spent decades demonstrating exactly that.
He has written new rags while preserving old ones, interviewed performers whose careers reached back to the early twentieth century, revived nearly forgotten social dances, helped honor neglected musicians, and introduced audiences to historical sights and sounds they might otherwise never encounter.
Perhaps most importantly, his own compositions show that ragtime's creative possibilities did not end with Scott Joplin, Joseph Lamb, or James Scott. New composers can continue exploring its distinctive rhythms, melodies, and expressive possibilities while adding something of their own personalities.
Galen Wilkes has devoted more than half a century to keeping that tradition alive—not by treating ragtime as a relic, but by reminding audiences just how much fun it can still be.
And somewhere, one suspects, there's another old recording to discover, another story to preserve, another piano rag waiting to be written—and perhaps another cakewalk just waiting for someone to bring the cake.
Selected Performances
Ragtime Blackbird - Composed in 2016, Ragtime Blackbird is a beautiful tribute to the red-winged blackbird. In Galen's own words: "Ragtime Blackbird is a Classic Rag, following in the tradition of “avian rags” with bird-like qualities. It is named for the Red-Winged Blackbird, a most colorful sight where I grew up, on the languid Pattagansett." It’s a charming and clever use of ragtime’s joyful, rhythmic style.
As a fun side note, when I first started working on this piece, I naturally started swinging the 8ths notes. I sent an audio clip to Galen to share my interpretation, and he wasted no time setting me straight—turns out, Ragtime Blackbird really needs to be played with the strict, no-swing classic ragtime style. At first, it was a challenge for me to play it that way, but in hindsight, the piece is much stronger for it. There’s a certain crispness and clarity to it when played with the original rhythm that brings out all the subtle beauty Wilkes put into the composition.
Last of the Ragtime Pioneers - Written in 1984, this beautiful classic rag was written as a eulogy for three composers that had died the past year; Eubie Blake, Abe Olman and Grace Leboy, all born in the 19th century. The pianist is Sue Keller.
The Streets of Sedalia - Here's a rare video of Galen Wilkes himself playing his composition "The Streets of Sedalia" - written in 1987 and inspired by historic picture postcards of the famous ragtime town in Missouri.
Locating The Music
Galen Wilkes has his compositions available in multiple folios at his website store.
Published Compositions for Piano
Mexican Mirage (tango) - 1976, 1979
Ragtime Bluebird - 1977
Hollywood Rag - 1978, 1979
Sonatina in Ragtime - for piano and violin - 1980, 2025
Mephistopheles’ Two Step - 1980
Magnolia Rag - 1980
Leprechaun Rag - 1981
Redwood Rag - 1981
Puppy on the Piano - 1981
Baltimore Rag - 1982
Rx Rag - 1982
Pacific Street on the Barbary Coast - 1982, 2001
Daffodil - 1983
Sedalia Stomp - 1983
The Creeks of Missouri - 1983
Boone County Rag - 1983
Walnut St. Rag - 1983, 2025
The Old Boston Post Road - 1984
Spanish Moss (tango) - 1984
The Last of the Ragtime Pioneers - 1984
Sunnieside Stride - 1984
Whippoorwill Hollow - 1985
Wisteria Rag - 1985
Horsefeathers - 1985
The Water Witch - 1985
Aphrodite (ragtime waltz) - 1985, 1986
The Streets of Sedalia - 1987
Cakewalking Through Kansas - 1992
The Oyster Shimmy - 1992
Niantic by the Sea - 1994
Sweet Dreams (ragtime waltz) - 1998
Queen of Diamonds (tango) - 1998
Jacaranda (ragtime waltz) - 2002, 2021
Hollywood Stroll - 2006
Green Clover Rag (w/ Neil Blaze, Tom Brier, Eric Marchese) - 2007
Red Carpet Stroll - 2008
Ragtime Blackbird - 2016
Krampus Cakewalk - 2016, 2025
Pink Elephants - 2021
Stompin’ The Blues - 2022
Skullduggery - 2023
Works for beginners:
Stop And Go - 1998
The Pie Fight - 1998
Old South Cakewalk - 1998; variation 2001
Promenade Cakewalk - 1998; rag version 2001
Struttin' Cakewalk - 1999
Jubilee Cakewalk - 1999
The Birthday Cake Walk - 2001
Indigo (ragtime waltz) - 2001
Conundrum (ragtime waltz) - 2001
Oleander (ragtime waltz) - 2001
Gemstone (ragtime waltz) - 2001
