"Alexander's Ragtime Band" is a Tin Pan Alley song by Irving Berlin, who wrote both the music and the lyrics. It was published on March 18, 1911 by the Ted Snyder Company in New York. Despite its title, it is a march with little syncopation rather than a true rag. Vaudeville contralto Emma Carus introduced it at the American Music Hall in Chicago on April 18, 1911, and Berlin credited her on the sheet music cover. The first recording, by Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan, was made on May 23, 1911, and was the best-selling American record for ten consecutive weeks.
The sheet music sold a million copies in 1911 and another million in 1912, and the song was the number one song from October 1911 to January 1912. It helped start a ragtime revival and the ragtime craze, and Vernon and Irene Castle danced to it. Later covers include those by Billy Murray (1912), Bessie Smith (1927), the Boswell Sisters (1934), Bing Crosby and Connee Boswell (1938) and Ray Charles (1959). It was the title song of the 20th Century Fox film Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), starring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye and Don Ameche. Scott Joplin's circle alleged that the melody was his.
