Richard Egan is a self-taught musician who fell in love with Missouri ragtime in the 1970s. Beginning in 1985, he was invited to play at the Goldenrod Ragtime Festivals in St. Louis. He is a descendant in the lineage of Folk Ragtime that was passed down from Brun Campbell to Trebor Tichenor and beyond. A founding member of The Friends of Scott Joplin, he served as the organization’s president from 1996 to 1999. In 2012, he was noted in St. Louis Magazine as one of five historical ragtime figures who have helped shape the St. Louis sound.
Always interested in the music that informed and preceded ragtime, Egan’s focus has gradually shifted. In 2009 he was introduced to musicians of traditional American string instruments. Since then, he has learned a broad array of traditional American music, performing with string musicians in countless settings. He has developed a piano style that often imitates string instruments yet retains elements of ragtime. Since retiring from his day job in 2015, he has challenged himself to compose on a near-daily basis, amassing a diverse body of original works in a minimalist syncopated style with roots in traditional music.
Since 2010, Egan has played for innumerable contra dances, square dances, and barn dances with: The Mound City Slickers, Folk School Wall of Sound, Rinn Netherton, Brick House Slough, and Rich and Famous. He has performed numerous shows as sideman to singer-songwriter Joey Kenig.
States performed in: California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania
Missouri counties performed in: Boone, Cape Girardeau, Cooper, Franklin, Gasconade, Greene, Iron, Jackson, Jefferson, Lincoln, Montgomery, Osage, Perry, Pettis, St. Charles, St. Louis, St. Louis City, Saline, Scotland, Warren, Washington, and Wayne
Festivals performed: Arcadia Valley Mountain Music Festival, Big Muddy Folk Festival, Blind Boone Ragtime Festival, Hoosier Ragtime Festival, Kirkwood GreenTree Festival, Sacramento Dixieland Jubilee, Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival, St. Charles Goldenrod Ragtime Festival, St. Louis Goldenrod Ragtime Festival, St. Louis Folk and Roots Festival, St. Louis Fringe Festival, St. Louis Piano Festival, Tower Grove Pride Festival, Valley of the Flowers Festival, West Coast Ragtime Festival
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The following is an interview with Brandon Byrne for "Composers' Corner." In May 2021, Byrne featured the composition "The Bike Ride":
Composers' Corner Brandon Byrne ■ May 2021 Richard Egan: The Bike Ride
This exuberant piece is featured on the composer's CD Always Been a Rambler. Though the various sections of The Bike Ride are easily discernible in the score, the listener perceives the piece as episodic, flowing, and free.
Interview:
Brandon Byrne: Was The Bike Ride inspired by your general love for cycling, or by a specific biking adventure you've had?
Richard Egan: This piece was inspired by my general love of cycling. When I play it, I imagine the excitement and freedom in taking off to ride on a perfect spring or summer day, with the prospects of exploring a new trail or place. There is even space within the piece for a little coasting and deep breathing.
B. B.: On your website you describe yourself as "a descendent in the lineage of Folk Ragtime." In your own words, what is a "folk musician," and why is Folk Ragtime important today?
R. E.: Folk Ragtime is a problematic term, because the definition of “folk musician” would be one who learns and propagates music aurally or “by ear,” whereas Folk Ragtime is generally written down and learned from sheet music. However, there was a subset of the ragtime musician population who would learn melodies by sharing with or borrowing from their peers. Early folk rags contain elements inherent in country blues or old-time fiddle tunes, so that is another distinguishing identifier. When I was first listening to ragtime in the mid-1970s, my idols were Trebor Tichenor and Tom Shea. My favorite LP was Tichenor’s 1973 King of Folk Ragtime, which I’m sure is where I first encountered the phrase Folk Ragtime. Tichenor and Shea were strongly influenced by Brun Campbell, who very well might have been as close to being a folk ragtime pianist as anybody we know of. Hence the “lineage.” Why is Folk Ragtime important today? There remain a lot of string musicians especially—blues guitarists, mandolin players, fiddlers—who play by ear and are attracted to the simpler forms of ragtime, find connections between their vernacular musical styles and ragtime, and continue the art form of Folk Ragtime to this day. Ragtime may not be at the forefront of their musical performances, but it is a part of their repertoires and continues to shape the network of sound, at least in my region.
B. B.: How has living in St. Louis influenced your musicianship?
R. E.: Growing up in St. Louis meant everything to my becoming a ragtimer. Once I realized that St. Louis had been a major center of ragtime, I dedicated myself to learning to play rags from St. Louis. I was a rather strange, introverted, yet dreamy sort of teenager who would visit the locations where Scott Joplin lived, or where the Rosebud Café stood. I’d sit at the grave of Charles Hunter or walk down the remains of Targee Street (where Tom Turpin operated a saloon and where Frankie Baker shot “Johnny”) and would let my musical imagination run wild. Also important was the fact that Trebor Tichenor was in St. Louis, and hosted a weekly hour of ragtime on public radio for 12 years. I taped his programs and absorbed more from them than any other source. And I would follow Trebor to his public performances with a strong desire to approach his style and ability as a pianist. So, if I hadn’t been living in St. Louis, I doubt that I’d be anything that resembles the musician that I am today. Perhaps I wouldn’t have become a musician at all.