Human League

Unofficial releases. Berlin, King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era (ISBN 0195101081) — the most authoritative book on Joplin's life. Recently, the band have joined of a number of 80s revival tours, Oakey now describing this as being in a Human League tribute band. Edward A. Four CDs attribute songs by The Human League under different names: on The Golden Hour Of The Future there are songs credited to The Human League when they were still The Future, on the single "I Don't Depend On You" where they call themselves The Men, on the "Dance Like A Star" Ep, there are also songs attributed to The Future and on "Love And Dancing", they pay homage to Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra by calling themselves League Unlimited Orchestra. It is still performed occasionally. The album Octopus went silver, and the lead-off single "Tell Me When" was the group's first major hit since "Human". In 1974 Kenneth MacMillan created a ballet for the Royal Ballet, Elite Syncopations, based on tunes by Joplin, Max Morath and others.

Dropped by Virgin Records after the failure of their album Romantic? (1989), the group were now signed to EastWest and their line-up included producer Ian Stanley, who helped them to achieve a more modern sound. Marvin Hamlisch's adaptation of the Joplin song "The Entertainer" reached number 3 on the Billboard magazine Hot 100 music chart in 1974, and a much wider and deeper interest in ragtime in general and Joplin in particular was created. The group made a surprise comeback in 1994. The second ragtime revival was prompted by the release of the movie The Sting in 1973, which despite being set in the 1930s still anachronistically featured a Joplin soundtrack and introduced new generations to his music. number one, "Human", but other singles made little impact. The first was in the early 1950s when ragtime was regarded as a happy nostalgic music of a more innocent time. The Jam & Lewis-produced Crash LP (1985) did provide a U.S. After Joplin's death ragtime music experienced two bursts of popularity.

The band also had a number of other hits but their success faded towards the mid-1980s. Before this, his only posthumously published piece had been "Reflection Rag", put together by Stark in 1917 from fragments of Joplin melodies in Stark's archives. Their most famous single "Don't You Want Me" reached number one in the UK charts during the Christmas of 1981 and was one of the biggest selling singles of that year. It had not been published in sheet-music form in Joplin's lifetime. The band achieved a brief spell of success in the early 1980s with their style of Synthpop music. There was, however, an important find in 1971 — a piano-roll copy of the lost "Silver Swan Rag," cut sometime around 1914. Re-energized by the addition of new members, the band went on to record their breakthrough album Dare, and have many chart successes. After Sweatman's death in 1961 the papers were last known to go into storage during a legal battle among Sweatman's heirs; their current location is not known, nor even if they still exist.

At the time, synthpop was starting to become fashionable due to the success of groups like OMD and Ultravox, but female vocals were rarely heard on synth records, so the addition of Sulley and Catherall gave the group a distinctive sound. However these were unfortunately few, since Joplin's music had come to be considered passé. However, they recruited bass player Ian Burden, guitarist Jo Callis (formerly of The Rezillos) and, famously, fronted the band with two singers, Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall, whom they had met in a Sheffield nightclub. Sweatman took care of these papers and generously shared access to them to those who enquired. When Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware left to form Heaven 17 it seemed that Phil Oakey and Adrian Wright, the sole remaining group members, would be unable to sustain the band, which, just before the split, was beginning to achieve wider popularity. Joplin's musical papers, including unpublished manuscripts, were willed to Joplin's friend and the executor of his will, musician and composer Wilber Sweatman. Their first single to chart was 'Empire State Human', which peaked at number 62 in the charts. Michael's Cemetery in the Astoria section of Queens.

Shortly afterwards, they signed up with Virgin Records, and by the early 1980s had become a successful British electropop band. He was buried in St. Originally a post punk synthesiser based group from Sheffield, the Human League (previously known as the Future) released their first single, "Being Boiled" c/w "Circus Of Death" on Bob Last's Fast Product record label in 1978. His death did not make the headlines for two reasons: ragtime was quickly losing ground to jazz and the United States would enter World War I within days. A fan site devoted to pictures of the Human League in concert during 2004. (http://www.redpenguin.net/bandphotos/human-league.php). Joplin died there on April 1, 1917. Secrets Online, excellent fan site with indepth Human League coverage both past and present. (http://www.league-online.com/). In mid-January 1917 Joplin was hospitalized at Manhattan State Hospital in New York City, and friends recounted that he would have bursts of lucidity in which he would jot down lines of music hurriedly before relapsing.

Blind Youth, a site dedicated to the early post-punk works of Human League. (http://www.blindyouth.co.uk/). However, the irregularities are just as likely due to the primitive technology used to record the rolls. A Human League fan site (http://users.bigpond.net.au/human-league/home.htm). It has been claimed that the uneven nature of some of Joplin's piano rolls, such as one of the recordings of the Maple Leaf Rag mentioned above, documented the extent of Joplin's physical deterioration due to syphilis. "Rock And Roll Is Dead" (2003) was a single from fellow Sheffield band, Kings Have Long Arms, that paid tribute to Oakey and eventually was re-released with Oakey doing some guest vocals. A surviving copy of the 'Pleasant Moments' roll has not yet been discovered. Today" (2003) was a single from Alex Gold featuring Oakey on vocals. These are the only records of his playing we have, and are interesting for the embellishments added by Joplin to his performances.

"L.A. Despite this, he recorded six piano rolls that year — Maple Leaf Rag (for Connorized and Uni-Record labels), Something Doing, Magnetic Rag, Ole Miss Rag, and Pleasant Moments (all for Connorized). "Together In Electric Dreams" was a solo single for Oakey rather than the whole League, but has been included on Human League albums as if it were by the whole band. He suffered later from dementia, paranoia, paralysis and other symptoms. 'The Human League Interview'. Joplin wanted to experiment further with compositions like Treemonisha, but by 1916 he was suffering from the effects of terminal syphilis. 'The Human League Promo Mix CD' (not available). The score to an earlier ragtime opera by Joplin, A Guest of Honor, is lost.

'The Golden Hour Of The Future'. It was performed only once during his lifetime, in 1915. 'Dance Like A Star' (EP). Joplin continued to experiment with other musical forms as well; after moving to New York City, Joplin attempted an ambitious ragtime opera, Treemonisha, which he produced himself at great personal expense. 'The Future Tapes' (unreleased). After some months of faltering, Joplin continued writing and publishing, and in those days before recorded music was a best-selling composer based on sales of sheet music. 'In Darkness' (a bootleg demo album). The first work copyrighted after Freddie's death, Bethena (1905), is a very sad, musically complex ragtime waltz.

'Taverner Tape' (1978). Perhaps his dearest love, Freddie Alexander, died at age twenty just two months after they married, of complications resulting from a cold. 'Human League Cassette' (1978). Joplin had several marriages. League Live (DVD). Maple Leaf Rag boosted Joplin to the top of the list of ragtime performers and moved ragtime into prominence as a musical form. The Very Best Of (EMI, 2 CDs, CD2 is all remixes, also on DVD). It has been estimated that Joplin made $360 per year on this piece in his lifetime.

"All I Ever Wanted". Joplin received a one-cent royalty for each copy and ten free copies for his own use. Secrets (The Japanese version has three bonus tracks)