Ragtime country music flourished in East Texas more than anywhere else. This could be because of the large German population in Texas. It seems that ragtime flourished wherever there was a large German population, Missouri and Indiana being two more examples. Or, perhaps it’s because of the close relationship of a rag to a march. Scott Joplin was originally from Texas and took lessons from a German music teacher, Julius Weiss. Whatever the reason, ragtime was always popular in Texas and stayed popular there longer than it did in the rest of the country. Another Texas connection to Ragtime is Euday Bowman who wrote the 12th Street Rag, possibly the most popular rag ever written. Bowman was from Fort Worth, the same city, as mentioned earlier, that played an important role in the development of Western Swing. Western Swing bands were still performing rags into the 1930s and 1940s long after ragtime had gone out of style. Early Texas blues also had a strong ragtime flavor and barrelhouse piano, a style that lies somewhere between ragtime and boogie-woogie, was very popular in Texas.

The East Texas Serenaders from Lindale, Texas, near Tyler, recorded more rags than any other hillbilly group. Their name reflects the fact that they would go from house to house serenading. They were led by the talented fiddler Daniel Huggins Williams, who influenced many Western Swing fiddlers, and included a strong rhythm section with Cloet Hamman on guitar and Henry Bogan on cello, which he usually played with a bow. They wrote most of their own tunes, although in the true folk tradition, Williams admits that many of his pieces incorporated tunes he had heard somewhere else. (Hoeptner). Mineola Rag is the most raglike of all of their recordings. It is an actual three-theme rag, with sixteen measures per theme and it changes keys at the trio, which are all characteristics of a rag. The East Texas Serenaders recorded between 1927 and 1937.

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