Luckey Roberts

Charles Luckeyth "Luckey" Roberts was a transcendentally gifted pianist of the "San Juan Hill" ragtime school and a composer of both popular and classical material. Born in Philadelphia and a lifelong Quaker and teetotaler, Roberts began to play the rent parties in Harlem around 1908 and was often the man to beat in cutting contests; the astounding virtuosity of his 1908 rag "Nothin'" demonstrates that there couldn't have been many players in San Juan Hill expecting to win against Roberts. He began to publish his rags in 1909, starting with "The African 400 (An Educated Rag),"...