Arthur Marshall (1881 – 1968)

Arthur Marshall was a ragtime musician who was a friend and writing partner of Scott Joplin. Born on a farm in Saline County, Missouri, on November 20, 1881, Marshall and his family later moved to Sedalia. When Scott Joplin moved to Sedalia, he lived with the Marshall family.

Arthur Marshall learned a great deal about ragtime music from Joplin, and attended grade school and Lincoln High School in Sedalia with another of Joplin’s students, Scott Hayden. After studying music theory at George R. Smith College in Sedalia with Joplin, Marshall majored in education and earned a teaching license.

Joplin, Hayden, and Marshall became extremely close, wrote music together, and honed their piano skills playing in local nightclubs like the Black 400 Club and the Maple Leaf Club. Between 1900 and 1902, Arthur toured the country playing piano and marching with cymbals in parades with McCabe’s Minstrels, leaving after he had saved up a tidy sum of money. After this, Marshall followed Scott Joplin to St. Louis.

While in St. Louis, Marshall played for the crowds at the 1904 World’s Fair and married his first wife, Maude McMannes. He also reunited with Scott Joplin and Scott Hayden at Joplin’s Drama Company. Marshall divorced and left in 1906 for Chicago where he played for various saloons, restaurants, and clubs. A year later, he married his second wife, Julia Jackson, with whom he had two children. In 1909 they went back to Sedalia for a short while before returning to St. Louis the next year. Marshall worked in St. Louis for the next six years until Julia died in 1916. After his second wife’s death, Marshall became ill and developed a twitch in his hand that hampered his ability to play the piano. He physically recovered, remarried, and relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, but stopped playing piano professionally.