Editing Joseph Lamb (composer) (section)

{{Short description|American composer of ragtime music (1887–1960)}}
{{More citations needed|date=January 2016}}
[[File:Joseph Lamb (musician) ca. 1915.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Joseph Lamb, ca. 1915]]

'''Joseph Francis Lamb''' (December 6, 1887 – September 3, 1960) was an American composer of [[ragtime]] music. Lamb, of [[Irish American|Irish]] descent, was the only non-[[African American]] of the "Big Three" composers of classical ragtime, the other two being [[Scott Joplin]] and [[James Scott (composer)|James Scott]]. The ragtime of Joseph Lamb ranges from standard popular fare to complex and highly engaging. His use of long phrases was influenced by classical works he had learned from his sister and others while growing up, but his sense of structure was potentially derived from his study of Joplin's piano rags. By the time he added some polish to his later works in the 1950s, Lamb had mastered the classic rag genre in a way that almost no other composer was able to approach at that time, and continued to play it passably as well, as evidenced by at least two separate recordings done in his home, as well as a few recorded interviews.