Scott Hayden (March 31, 1882 — September 16, 1915) was an African-American composer of ragtime music.
Born in Sedalia, Missouri, he was the son of Marion and Julia Hayden. Hayden is remembered today for the four rags he composed in collaboration with Scott Joplin, "Sunflower Slow Drag," "Something Doing," "Felicity Rag," "Kismet Rag" and also for another composition he wrote himself, "Pear Blossoms". There was a family connection of sorts between the two men, since Joplin's first wife, Belle Hayden, had been Scott Hayden's sister-in-law. Hayden married Nora Wright and lived with the Joplins in St. Louis.
Nora died giving birth to a daughter in 1901. Hayden moved to Chicago, got a job as an elevator operator in the Cook County Hospital, and married Jeanette Wilkins. A slender, handsome man of delicate health, he died in Chicago of pulmonary tuberculosis, leaving "Pear Blossoms" unfinished.
Famous quotes containing the words scott and/or hayden:
“What lies behind facts like these: that so recently one could not have said Scott was not perfect without earning at least sorrowful disapproval; that a year after the Gang of Four were perfect, they were villains; that in the fifties in the United States a nothing-man called McCarthy was able to intimidate and terrorise sane and sensible people, but that in the sixties young people summoned before similar committees simply laughed.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Then you arrived, meditative, ironic,
richly human; and your presence was shore where I rested
released from the hoodoo of that dance, where I spoke
with my true voice again.”
—Robert Earl Hayden (1913–1980)