Happy Birthday Jay Roberts!(and his dramatic tale!)

Ah yes, Jay Roberts, the most innocent-looking Rag-Timer to come from San Francisco. With his sweet young face, shining blond hair, and very long stringy hands, one would never see the wild side in him just from his looks. Roberts was born in Oakland California on this date back in 1890, and what he became would never have been expected from the entertainment world of the west coast in the 1900's. He was a very normal kid growing up in the San Francisco area in the 1890's and 1900's, learning music just as every child did, from church music in Sunday School. But this innocent blond became quickly-blossoming musician by age 14, surpassing all of the kids he knew in his music abilities. He was a well-known figure in SF by 1906(yes, around the time of the earthquake...). He did not live in the city the year the the earthquake struck, he lived still back across the bay east in Oakland. By 1908, he was making the rounds through all the cafe's and stages in the areas in and around SF, becoming a very well known and respected pianist who at not even 20 had masterful skills. This was also the time that Jay began to experiment with Rag-Time. He had been fascinated with this type of music since his childhood, but this is where he really started to write some of his own music in this style. 

In 1910, Roberts compiled his first piece of music, which is still a bear for Rag-Timers of all types to play to-day, called the "Entertainer's Rag"

(from my own sheet music collection, this is a first edition, published in Oakland)

A fun piano roll rendition can be heard here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysggYyiauQs

This was the main piece that kept Jay up to snuff on money and popularity. This piece became an international hit by 1912, with a million copies sold by that time. After the first big fame with "The Entertainer's Rag" he began to travel the west coast on the vaudeville circuits that existed there, giving him even more fame and fortune. At only 23, Jay was becoming a figure of suspicion in the SF and Oakland areas, only because he had been going out and risking heaps of money on real estate, and buying very expensive luxury items. He bought a Regal auto earlier in 1913, and by the end of that year, he had a small plane in his possession. These outrageous purchases had the police and general public on his tail. He wasn't getting into any trouble, he was just acting a little queerly. Some even said he could be seen flying his plane around over ocean beach and the bay(before any of the bridges existed!). In 1911, Jay got two more pieces published, his vanity piece "Jay Roberts Rag" and the "Joy Rag". These two rags were overtaken by his still popular piece "Entertainer's Rag", so they were not nearly as popular. With a few more years of slight surveillance, the highly anticipated world's fair came to town in 1915, and Roberts was one of the great many sights to see and hear. He came to many of his sets all dressed up, and drugged up as well. There had been mutters around that he might have been smuggling heaps of opium in and out of Mexico in that little plane of his by this time. So he did all of his sets and those who saw him included some of the young novelty pianists who would cultivate their pianistic craft in the 20's. 

They described him as a sort wildman, high one some kind of dope, with his blond hair a mess in front of his face as he played. And his playing, why it was just as so! He was a genius pianist nonetheless. When he stood to bow, his height and figure were unexpected and somewhat frightening. His playing was unruly, and scattered, but progressive---there was not a thing like it at the fair! 

This was where many of the later novelty pianists were said to have gotten ideas, those who heard him were amazed at his whole playing style and demeanor. This was just the edge of his quick decline. The next year after the success of the great fair, he was finally busted for smuggling opium and consumption of the drug. This big bust let down so many of the people who followed him and went to his shows all over the bay area. This very big headline in 1916 forced Roberts to be kicked out, or somewhat exiled from SF from then on. At this, Roberts moved to Los Angeles, probably by packing everything up in his expensive car and selling his airplane, for money to buy a new one once he got to LA. Once he was living in Southern California, he almost completely abandoned the performing jag, because in the city directories, and 1920 census, Roberts can be found living with his wife Grace and listed as being an aviator. He did probably play in some local venues here and there while living in LA, but he was mostly up in smoke(smoking that dope of his) and flying around. He must have been a quiet character in this time, as he probably never spoke to anyone about his past, even if he was still infamous all over the country, he was just out in hiding from it all. He just wanted to be high, and up in the clouds, away from everything. After living silently in LA for a while, in 1922, he moved off the map all the way to Panama. This was another one of his terrible decisions. He was living in Panama when the depression hit, so he had to endure the hard times in the canal area, which it where he lived. No longer performing, Jay fell deep into depression and his drugs, then depending on them a little too much. He was hopeless, even if he was getting some local work on the canal, he felt that was demeaning to him. Now penniless, and broken, he had nowhere to go. In June ,1932 Roberts wrote a little scraggly note expressing his pain and sorrow, just after he did that, he shot himself amid tears with a revolver at the side of his head. Killing the great San Francisco eccentric. 
The Oakland dandy was no more, and went completely forgotten for decades. Until to-day, where his ghost haunts SF and Oakland, seeing the weirdos come and go, just as he came and went. 

I hope you enjoyed this!