Missouri Eye Doctor

Often overlooked by ragtime historians, John William "Blind" Boone had a remarkably successful and influential music career that endured for more than forty years. Blind Boone: Missouri's Ragtime Pioneer provides the first full account of the Missouri-born musician's amazing story of overcoming the odds. Boone's background and his approach to music contributed to his ability to bridge gaps -- gaps between blacks and whites, gaps between popular and classical music, gaps between plantation melodies and ragtime music. Boone's thousands of performances from 1880 to 1926 brought blacks and whites into the same concert halls as he played a mixture of popular and classical tunes. A ragtime pioneer, Boone helped give the musical style legitimacy by bringing it to the concert stage. The mulatto child of a runaway slave and a Union soldier, Boone was born in Miami, Missouri, in 1864. At six months he was diagnosed with "brain fever". Doctors, believing they were performing a lifesaving procedure, removed Boone's eyes and sewed his eyelids shut. Despite blindness and poverty, Boone was characterized as a cheerful child. Growing up in Warrensburg, Missouri, he played freely with both black and white children, undaunted by racial differences or his own disabilities. He exhibited a keen ear and musical promise early in life. Recognizing Boone's talent, the town's prominent citizens sent him to the St. Louis School for the Blind. There he excelled at music. However, Boone clearly despised formal schooling and frequently ran away to the "tenderloin" district of the city, where he was first exposed to ragtime. As a result, he was expelled after only three years. After some harrowingexperiences, Boone met John Lange Jr., a benevolent black contractor and philanthropist in Columbia, Missouri. Boone and Lange began a lifelong friendship, which eventually developed into an equal partnership in the Blind Boone Concert Company.