Joseph Northup

Joseph Northup is one of the mystery men of American ragtime. It hasn't been possible to determine exactly who he was, or where he worked.

In any event, The Cannon Ball was one of the most popular and successful rags of the early 20th century. The rag's opening strain is a folk theme that appears in both Mullen's Levee Rag of 1902 and Tournade's Easy Money of 1904, but it is the rag's trio strain, with its cascading triads, that is most striking.

Notes by Roy Wiseman