Jo Ann Castle- An In Depth Look At Her Playing and style

By Omar Rasidagic

Some background on "honky-tonk" and "Ragtime"

The musical style known as ragtime was popular between the years of c.1896-1917. In 1917, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band released their arrangement of a popular piece that their pianist D. J. Larocca had composed, the "Tiger Rag," (a recording of it can be found here). After that, jazz took off, and ragtime was more or less forgotten for the next 20 to 30 years or so. Except for the occasional recording of "Maple Leaf Rag," "Tiger Rag," or "Alexander's Ragtime Band" by a jazz band or pianist, ragtime was by and large forgotten.

In the early 1940s however, a change happened. Jazz had now turned into something totally different than what the first jazz musicians had envisioned, created, and recorded. This was what is often described as "the big band era" by most musical historians, and was the playing field of such names as Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, and Benny Goodman. Suddenly, there was a group of people who felt that jazz had "gone astray from its origins." A new type of jazz was founded, usually called "traditional jazz," or "Dixieland jazz." In doing this, most of these bands rediscovered something else entirely: ragtime. The first credited "traditional" jazz band from this revival era was the Yerba Buena Jazz Band. In 1942, they decided to play this wonderful new piece they had discovered: it was George Botsford's 1908 composition, "Black and White Rag." They couldn't play it with the whole band, and as pianist Wally Rose remembered, "...never seemed to quite well go off too well with the band. It was too difficult. It was clumsy on the horns and out of range and all kinds of stuff. Watters (the band leader) thought maybe it would be better if the piano played it alone. So it eventually ended as a piano solo with rhythm." Their recording of "Black and White Rag" was their biggest hit. You can find the recording here.

The Yerba Buena Jazz Band

In 1948, Pee Wee Hunt and his jazz band recorded their arrangement of Euday L. Bowman's 1914 "12th Street Rag." (It can be found here)It went on to top the Billboard charts for that year and brought the word "ragtime" back into the American household. However, all these people were jazz musicians, and as such, they didn't think of ragtime as a clear distinctive style of its own; they merely thought of ragtime as just another influence of jazz.

Pee Wee Hunt's 1948 recording of "12th Street Rag"

A few things happened however that would change this up. First off, oddly enough, the Cold War was now in full swing. For the first time in history, at the touch of a button, the world could be destroyed 8 times over. People were understandably scared, especially the older (50+-year-old) generation of people who grew up at the time when ragtime was popular. Suddenly, there was a yearning to go back to a time when everything was simpler; when you could sing "Alexander's Ragtime Band", marvel at the new horseless carriages, and buy ice cream in a newfangled waffle cone for a few pennies. In other words, nostalgia kicked in and provided for the perfect environment for what came next.

A new breed of musicians started popping up; the "honky-tonk" piano players. These were "perffessors" that could belt out "old-timey" songs. Usually played was everything from "In the Good Old Summertime" (A Tin Pan Alley pop song in 3/4 time) to "12th Street Rag" (A pure, real rag), "The Original Boogie Woogie" (A boogie-woogie piece) and calling it all the same thing, "honky-tonk" and playing it as fast as they can. However, in doing this, they cheapened the music. They started pushing this image of the saloon piano player, who wears garters and a bowler hat, who sits on an out of tune piano, and plays everything at lightning speed, just to impress the crowd. Ragtimers today usually refer to this as the "50's rag revival," and generally frown on this period, as it devalued the music and made it into something it really wasn't. This revival invented the term "Honky Tonk" and applied it to all music that sounded "old-timey," (Including ragtime), and made it so indistinguishable that even today I find people asking me if I'm a "honky-tonk piano player." The first credited player of this breed was Joe "Fingers" Carr (whose real name was Lou Busch). 

Joe "Fingers" Carr, personifying a "Honky Tonk" pianist.

Plenty more followed; Johhny Madoxx, Ray Turner, Winifred Atwell, Del Woods; the list goes on, but the one that almost everyone (read: baby boomers) remember today is the iconic name, "Jo Ann Castle." 

A little about Jo Ann and how she got started

Back in the fifties, a new television show was being premiered, the "Lawrence Welk Show." Essentially, the show was one musical number after another, hosted by none other than Lawrence Welk himself. The show seems slightly bizarre to modern eyes, so much so that SNL did some sketches mocking the show a few years ago, one of which you can find here. In 1954, one year before they went on air, Welk played a concert alongside honky-tonk and ragtime pianist Johnny Maddox. Welk was impressed with Maddox's playing, and asked his pianists if any of them could play "that ragtime music". One of his pianists by the name of Dudley Little jr. stood up and said he could, as he had been playing it since a child. The name of "Big Tiny Little Jr." was born. He played all the usual honky-tonk favorites from week to week. A good example of his playing can be found here. The tunes played are "Spaghetti Rag" and a boogie-woogie piece "Caledonia". He was a crowd favorite, entertaining the American public every week between 1955 and 1959.

One of Big Tiny Little's albums

However, he decided to leave the show after only 3 years, and a replacement was needed. One of the Lawrence Welk show's musical numbers was accordion music, and a young star named "Jo Ann Castle" had recently recorded some of her accordion solos.

Jo Ann, at age 16 playing accordion at a corporate event.

Jo Ann at age 12 (!!) playing the piano in a local band.


Her real name was Jo Ann Zering, but picked up the name "Castle" from her favorite accordion company. It attracted the attention of Lawrence Welk, but as they already an accordionist, he asked her to fill in another vacant position; the honky-tonk piano player. She was familiar with the genre of ragtime, boogie-woogie, and honky-tonk. Her father had taught her the "Maple Leaf Rag" at the age of eleven. Unfortunately though, Lawrence Welk wouldn't hire her on the spot, and he asked her to "guest star" for a few weeks; in essence, he was trying to see if she would be a good fit for the show, and more importantly to Jo Ann, was not paying her.


Jo Ann later recalled that she told "a little lie" and said she told Lawrence Welk that she knew "three hundred ragtime and honky-tonk piano pieces."(Side note here- but note how she makes a distinction between "honky-tonk" and "Ragtime!") But, "I did not know three hundred! I only knew three!" Regardless, she played for the first, second, and third week. On the fourth, she was panicked as she couldn't play anything else, so she composed her own rag, which she called "Painter's Rag." She named it thus because her father was painting the ceiling above the piano where she worked. After she was done playing, Lawrence Welk gave her a cake, (as it was her 20th birthday) and declared her a regular cast member. You can find the clip here.

Jo Ann receiving a birthday cake on her 20th birthday

She went on, appearing week to week and playing her arrangements of ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, boogie-woogie, jazz, and classical pieces put into her honky-tonk and ragtime style between the years of 1959 and 1969.

A few *more* notes before we start

Whenever I play for people, and they don't quite know what ragtime is, the younger folks recognize it as "Ice cream truck music," or go, "Ohhh! I know that!" when they hear "The Entertainer." But the older folks always mention Jo Ann. Before we dive into her playing, I thought it would be interesting to discuss this point; that those who grew up in that time knew the name and playing of "Jo Ann Castle." While there were many honky-tonk, and indeed later, ragtime pianists back in the day, none were so famous as her. Some loved The LW Show, some didn't, but everyone loved Jo Ann. One lady I talked to said this, ".. My parents would always turn on the LW show. I used to hate it and would play with my brothers in the next room. However, my parents would always call me back in when Jo Ann played because they knew I wanted to see her playing! My favorite part was watching all the hammers and fingers go flying. I used to beg my parents for a piano like hers to replace ours." My own grandmother, who grew up in communist Yugoslavia in the 1950s and 60s, remembered her, saying that she used to compare her dresses to Jo Ann's. This was how far and wide her audience was. While she wasn't really playing "pure" ragtime per se, she was at least showing people something of it, and keeping the word in use.

Another thing must be discussed as well. Jo Ann was a honky-tonk pianist and a LW Show entertainer, and those came first before everything else. So if the crowd wanted to hear "Maple Leaf Rag" at some crazy absurd speed, well, that's what they were gonna get. She was primarily an entertainer, and everything else came second. As ragtime historian Terry Waldo says, "To try to find any 'heavy' messages from this era is pointless." Though she was a honky-tonk pianist, and there are definitely some pieces that she plays that would make classic ragtime fans run screaming from the room, there are some arrangements that sparkle quite beautifully. As we will see, through all that, she still surpasses most honky-tonk pianists of her days. She has much to offer to the ragtime pianist and we cannot disregard all of her playing for a few clunkers, as there are gold nuggets.

Jo Ann's style

Like all pianists, Jo developed a style which would come to be unique in a sea of ragtime players. She has numerous stylistic techniques that appear frequently in her playing, the three most common which I shall discuss here.

The first is an interesting one. Jo Ann, more than any other honky-tonk pianist of her day, employed the use of tremolos and glissandos. Johnny Maddox, Joe "Fingers" Carr, and "Big Tiny" Little all employed it as well, but not to the extent that Jo Ann did. There are two theories as to where she learned them. The first is rather simple, that she picked it up from her predecessor, Big Tiny Little. Little used especially glissandos liberally. Therefore, it would make sense that Jo Ann picked it up from him. However; this theory doesn't stand very well when considering the fact that Jo Ann seemed to already use them before she joined or met Little; early recordings of her have her using them both as much as she did in later years. This leads us to our second theory, that Jo Ann picked up the use of tremolos from player piano rolls.

For those unfamiliar, player pianos were pianos that, as the name implies, play themselves. They were very popular during the ragtime era, with the player piano range petering out during the great depression. However, a number of people kept their player pianos. One thing that many player piano artists used, especially towards the mid-teens and through the early twenties was the use of the "tremolo". This roll of "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?" is a good example of that. Now some may say that the idea of Jo Ann having a player seems far fetched, and indeed, even I thought so.

However, I couldn't help notice how many of her arrangments matched certain piano rolls. All my suspicions were confirmed when I came across this clip of Jo Ann playing "Sweet Georgia Brown". In it, she does say that her arrangement is based on "an old piano roll" when talking to Welk briefly before beginning. That particular arrangement seems to sound the most like Pete Wendling's famous 1925 roll of the piece, especially towards the end. Check out 2.15 on the roll video, and compare it to 2.01 on the Castle video, and it matches very closely. In sheet music for Jo Ann's arrangments of her pieces, she puts "Pianola style," as a tempo marker, undoubtedly referencing player pianos.


Sheet music for one of Jo Ann's arrangments with "pianola style" written as a tempo indication

In light of all this, it is interesting to note that she did have connections with player pianos in later years. She recorded at least six of her arrangements for the QRS piano roll company in 1972, and at least three for the Playrite Piano Roll company in 1962 (I can't find the exact number of rolls or years recorded, but there seems to be a consensus of at least these rolls existing).

An (incomplete) list of (most) of Jo Ann's piano rolls. A playlist of Jo Ann's piano rolls can be found here.

One of Jo Ann's piano rolls for QRS

The question remains; did she have access to one as a child? When learning ragtime? Or perhaps she got recordings of piano rolls from a friend?


Another hallmark of Jo Ann's style is rather hard to describe, as it doesn't really have a name. Jo Ann applies it to a lot of her ragtime arrangements. On sheet music it looks like this:

The above piece of music is from her composition "Painter's Rag". This effect is most used when she rags pop songs. You can hear demonstrated here beautifully at the 3.02 video mark. Here she plays the 1911 rag-song "I Want A Girl". What Jo Ann does is take the melody (in the case of "I Want A Girl" its a G) and essentially takes the chord in the left hand (A "C" chord) and breaks it up in between an octave melody line of G. It's a common thing she does when playing pop songs ragged.

The last point I'd like to discuss is the use that Jo Ann put into a lot of arrangments is another simple, yet effective technique that really helps define her style. Again, it doesn't necessarily have a name, but this time it is a lot easier to explain. At the end of phrases and sections, Jo Ann likes to put 3 notes leading up to the next phrase or section. For example, here in the "Painter's Rag" she puts in a G-A-D octave left hand run before the next phrase of music.

It's a common enough thing, but it really adds to her style.

Ragtime Piano Gal

Soon after she got onto the show, Jo Ann recorded an album, "Ragtime Piano Gal," in late 1959. This album is pure gold. it shows the best of all of Jo Ann's playing, and the whole playlist can be found here on YouTube.

Ragtime Piano Gal-1960

It's the closest you can get to a real "pure ragtime" album from her. Overall, it comes off nicely, but I have a general complaint against it. On clips of Jo Ann playing on the LW Show, its almost always just a piano solo, especially in her early years. However, in this album, there's a tuba and a banjo in the back. I don't mind the banjo so much, but the tuba gives it an "oom-pah" sort of sound that I really dislike. It makes the whole thing have a vague "silly" or "corny" feel to it. If only that wasn't there, I feel that it would have added a tad bit more of "legitimacy" to it. Now that I got that out of the way, let's look at her actual playing. She plays some of the honky-tonk/ragtime standards of the time, like "Spaghetti Rag" her crazy arrangement of "Maple Leaf Rag," and very nice decent arrangements of "Black and White Rag" and "Dill Pickles Rag". Wallie Herzer's 1913 "Tickle the Ivories Rag," and two of her own compositions, "Painter's Rag" and "Castle Rag," (Not to be confused with James Reese Europe's 1914 "Castle House Rag!") are also featured on it.

As a modern ragtimer, I find it interesting how she includes James Scott's 1906 masterpiece, "Frog Legs Rag" on her first album. Granted, it is played at a definite honky-tonk speed and style, but just the fact that she included such a gem of classic ragtime on her album is really something. At a time when almost every honky-tonk album was the same, there was some variety; two rags she composed, as well as a classic rag, and on top of it, something as different as "Tickle the Ivories Rag." Even Max Morath, who was considered to be one of the first ragtime pianists who broke from "the honky-tonk mold" didn't include something like "Frog Legs Rag" in his first records. As a matter of fact, Morath's first two albums comprised mostly of Tin Pan Alley standards. The only rags featured were Scott Joplin's, "Maple Leaf Rag" and "Original Rags", and Charle L Johnson's "Dill Pickles Rag."

The original 1906 sheet music for "Frog Legs Rag"

This leads to the question, where did Jo Ann learn such rags as "Frog Legs" and "Tickle the Ivories"? I'm genuinely curious to find out. I can rule out ear playing for a few reasons. For one, almost every note is present in her recordings of pieces like "Frog Legs". while she does throw in a tremolo here, change up the left hand there, overall it's so close to the original that there's no mistaking that she learned it from sheets. The only other recording I can find of "Tickle the Ivories" from the time is Winifred Atwell's arrangement of the piece. However, I cannot determine whether she recorded it before or after "Ragtime Piano Gal", which is from late 1959 or early 1960. Online searches are fruitless, some putting it as early as 1956, others as late as 1964. However, even this aside, it appears Jo Ann saw the sheets for it. In Attwell's arrangement, the piece launches right away into the A strain, without playing the intro. Jo Ann plays the original intro, which means she had some access to an original recording or sheets of some kind.


The original 1911 sheets for "Tickle the Ivories Rag"

For me, my favorite ragtime recording done by Jo Ann is her recording of Wilbur Sweatman's 1911, "Down Home Rag." "Down Home" is my favorite rag, and her arrangement of the piece did in some part inspire my own arrangement of the piece, which you can find here. I personally love how she plays this at a loud and bouncy clip, and how the trio is played once before returning to the intro, A strain, and B again to finish. The intro to the piece and transitions to different sections are noticeably not original to the rag, and yet sound very creative. She plays the piece in Eb major, and then for the trio transitions to Ab. A bit odd, considering that the original rag was written in the key of C, and the trio is in F. The song version of the piece is in Bb, which leads to Eb. Most of the other pieces are in their original keys- "Black and White Rag" in G, "Maple Leaf Rag" in Ab, "12th Street Rag" in Eb (briefly switching to C but then going back to Eb), and "Spaghetti Rag" in C. In fact, "Down Home Rag" along with "Dill Pickles Rag" (C) and "Johnson Rag" (? key) are the only pieces in the whole album not in their original keys. The other two that weren't in their original keys are ones going from a "harder key" to an "easier key." Why did she put "Down Home" in Eb? The original is literally in C, so it isn't an "easier key." It is a tad bit faster than I like it, but not by much. It is undoubtedly one of my favorite recordings of my favorite rag.

The original 1911 sheets for "Down Home Rag"

Noticeably, more than a few of Jo Ann's arrangments sound like she got inspiration from traditional California jazz bands.  Her arrangement of"Down Home Rag"  especially in the B strain, sounds an awful lot like the Yerba Buena Jazz Band's recording. Her arrangement of "Black and White Rag"  matches the YBJB's recording (done by their pianist Wally Rose as a solo), especially in the intro and transition to the trio. It's interesting to contrast this with most honky-tonk pianists who try to copy Winifred Atwell's version of the piece. Not only that but the same label that distributed the YBJB's recordings had another jazz pianist named Ralph Sutton record for them. One of his biggest recordings from 1952 is "Frog Legs Rag". This may explain all these rags being on her first records- and there is a strong point to be made that Jo Ann had an early jazz influence. Like Wally Rose and Ralph Sutton, Jo Ann had a tendency to swing her rags. Another possible explanation for "Frog Legs Rag," would come again from the piano roll. QRS Piano Rolls came out with a roll of the rag sometime between 1950-1960. The only other possible explanation would for Jo Ann to have the sheets for the rags, which might actually be the case. As noted above with "Tickle the Ivories", Jo Ann played her rags as they were originally written. So even if she did have Sutton, Atwell, Rose, or piano rolls as influences or potentially "picked up by ear playing", the fact remains that her arrangements are incredibly close to the originals, while all those named are not.

In this album are contained two of Jo Ann's own compositions, "Painter's Rag" and "Castle Rag". The latter is not as interesting as the former, and I will stick to discussing "Painters Rag." The story behind "Painters Rag" is quite remarkable, as related above. She composed it quickly and put it together within about a week or so. Yet, the rag is quite inventive, and though she plays it at her usual honky-tonk clip and style, it seems to be patterned off of the "classic rag" format. As Bryan Cather, head historian at the Scott Joplin House and Museum said, "It's an interesting piece.....the first theme is Confreyesque, albeit a bit crudely..... but the other themes make me want to think she was trying to include other ragtime styles...... one section sort of approaches something like classic ragtime, while another really seems to be trying to be a cakewalk strain...on one hand it's clear she's well-versed in the broader ragtime repertoire, on the other hand, this is clearly intended for "honky-tonk" audiences."
An interesting note to make is how she uses long passages of music that flow between major and minor almost at random. James Scott has also been noted for employing the same technique. It's also incredibly catchy and sets one's toe-tapping immediately. The rag starts in the key of C and then moves to F for the B strain (rather reminiscent of both "Moose Rag" and "Spaghetti Rag"). It also shows off very well one of Jo Ann's techniques of playing broken chords and splitting them up in the right hand. Oddly, the piece goes into A flat for the trio, before returning to C. The section in A flat is marked in the music to be played "music box style." She employs this technique in almost every piece she plays from "Hot Time In the Old Time Tonight" to "Down Yonder." The effect is quite good, as it gives a break from the steady ragged left hand. Overall, the piece is very nice and attractive, definitely, a recommended listen to any ragtimer. I learned and recorded the piece myself, Which you can find here.

The first page of "Painter's Rag."

This is my favorite recording of "Painter's Rag".

Some other notable mentions

Some of her best rag song arrangments would be of the 1926 song "Baby Face", the 1924 blues rag song hit "Wang Wang Blues", the 1927 "I'm Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover", the 1930 "Shanty In Old Shanty Town", "Down At Papa Joes", "Silly Jilly", "Music! Music! Music!", Another one of her composition, "Maid In France,""Bring Back the Old Hurdy Gurdy", "American Patrol", "Hello Dolly!" , the 1909 rag-song hit "Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet"  George Gershwin's 1919 Tin Pan Alley hit, "Swanee", her ragged version of the 1936 song "San Fransisco", the 1896 hit, "Hot Time In the Old Town Tonight", "You Are My Sunshine", and one of my favorites, the 1920 song "When My Baby Smiles At Me". These recordings are played at a decent speed, perfectly capturing her style. Jo Ann's 1967 recording of the hit country song "Flowers On the Wall"is certainly one for the books. It's a very nice ragged rendition of the 1967 country classic, one that one could almost see dancers two-stepping to. It showcases her phenomenal talent at taking a piece and ragging it up. Unfortunately, this as well as her arrangement of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks At Home/Swanee River" and her arrangement of Harry Von Tilzer's 1911, "I Want A Girl" are no longer available on YT. The classic "Strolling Through the Park One Day" and "Sheik of Araby" are fine examples of how she plays things in double time.

"Hawaiin Ragtime" album

"Hawaiin Ragtime" album

In 1965, Jo Ann recorded an album called "Hawaiin Ragtime." While it's more boogie-woogie than ragtime, there are a few ragtime pieces. Regardless, it's incredibly interesting how she made the two seemingly oil and water genres come together and work. You can find a playlist of most of it here.

One last quick *humorous* note before we're done

No Jo Ann Castle discussion can be done without discussing the infamous "Hair clip." In this clip, Jo Ann is playing her "Chopstick's Boogie." For some reason, Lawrence Welk comes up behind her and starts playing with, of all things, her hair. 

While bouncing her hair up and down to the time of the piece she's playing, the hair comes loose and falls off, making it clear to everyone that Jo Ann was wearing a wig.

 You can see the whole video here.

In summary:

While Jo Ann Castle does play honky-tonk piano, there are definitely some pieces and arrangements that would almost move her from playing "honky-tonk" to "ragtime." Her album "Ragtime Piano Gal" demonstrates this beautifully, with a few classic rags and a few interesting ragtime pieces. Her own composition, "Painter's Rag" gives off an aurora of a classic rag being played in a honky-tonk style. While there is much of her playing that the modern ragtimer can discard as honky-tonk, much can be taken and incorporated into the ragtimer's playing. We also must give her credit for keeping the word "ragtime" alive through those lean years, to the point where everyone knew the term because of her. For all that, I salute her and take off my (metaphorical) boater hat in respect.