When ragtime pianist Scott Joplin wrote "The Entertainer" in 1902, The Billboard, as it was called back then, had yet to include charts of the hottest hits of the day. Seventy-two years later, Joplin and "The Entertainer" finally got their due, thanks to pianist/composer Marvin Hamlisch and a film starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman as a pair of con men.

Hamlisch became involved in The Sting at the request of director George Roy Hill. The pair had been friends for years, dating back to Hill's days as a director of Broadway plays for which Hamlisch would occasionally serve as a rehearsal pianist. But a lot had changed for Hamlisch since those days of warming up the piano stool. On February 2, 1974, Barbra Streisand scored her first Number One single with "The Way We Were," a song co-written by Hamlisch, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The song would be featured as the title track of Streisand's second Number One album, and would garner the Bergmans and Hamlisch a Grammy for song of the year and an Oscar for best song in a motion picture.

Writing for Streisand, however, was a lot different than working on The Sting. For one thing, Hamlisch wasn't a particularly big fan of Joplin's music. Yet Hamlisch had to choose which Joplin pieces would work best in the context of the film. "The way George cut the film was very musical," Hamlisch says. "But Joplin's music wasn't always a perfect fit, so I had to do things to make it fit."

Initially, a soundtrack album wasn't even planned. "It was always an afterthought," Hamlisch admits. "I don't think anyone realized that it would be a big hit." Since the music was recorded with a relatively small band of 10 or 11 players, an album could be recorded inexpensively, even if it wasn't a big seller.

While performing the music for the film, Hamlisch grew to have a greater appreciation for Joplin's music. "We really used the creme de la creme of Scott Joplin," Hamlisch says. Included in the album were three different takes of "The Entertainer." To fill in the places in the film where Joplin's music didn't work, Hamlisch wrote originals such as "Luther" and "The Glove." Says Hamlisch, "Anything I wrote was written in a very Scott Joplin manner, and hopefully no one could tell my originals from his music."

It was the success of the film, which went on to win an Oscar for best picture, and the single, "The Entertainer," that propelled The Sting to Number One in its 15th week on the chart, making it the first instrumental album to hit the summit since the similarly left-field soundtrack album Dueling Banjos: From the Original Soundtrack Deliverance. "The Entertainer," like "Dueling Banjos," did not hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 -- it stalled at number three -- but the fact that it was a hit at all was a shock to Hamlisch.

- Craig Rosen, The Billboard Book of Number One Albums, Billboard, 1996.

Bonus Reviews!

Purists be damned: Director George Roy Hill and musical collaborator Marvin Hamlisch knew perfectly well that their Paul Newman-Robert Redford conmen buddy comedy took place in the 1930s, three full decades after composer Scott Joplin's rags had been the rage. And like any good filmmakers, they knew the music simply fit the film.

- Entertainment Weekly, 2001.

Marvin Hamlisch single-handedly brought Scott Joplin and ragtime to new heights, reintroducing the public to the nearly forgotten music of the jazz predecessor and pianist on this soundtrack to the charming Robert Redford/Paul Newman crook flick. Setting the beat for the hit movie, this fine selection of classics aced the charts and scored a top-ten single with a historical cut that, as its name claims, is still quite entertaining. * * * * *

- Zagat Survey Music Guide - 1,000 Top Albums of All Time, 2003.

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