Joseph C. Northup is known pretty much for only one piano rag. However, that one rag is a doozy, a challenging piece that is still a favorite of performers and audiences alike more than a century after its composition. It was indicator of the direction that Northup wanted to go in his life, but in spite of a single success not everything works out quite the way one would hope. Here is Northup's story as best can be surmised from the scant data available on him, nearly all of it presented in this biography for the first time.

Northup was born in the northern Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois to New York natives Charles W. Northup and his wife Jane Blanche Roat in 1879. His older brother George had been born in Wisconsin in 1875, and younger brother Richard would follow in August of 1881. Charles was a free-lance newspaper and magazine journalist, a path that it seemed Joseph would follow as he went through school taking courses in the same field. However, Joseph also had some musical training, although to what degree is unknown through available records. His father would not live long enough to see his son follow in his footsteps, passing on in the early 1890s. In the 1898 Evanston city directory, Joseph is listed as a reporter with the Chicago City Press Association. He was married to Elizabeth B. Hitchens in Chicago on March 1, 1899. As of the 1900 census the couple was living near Chicago, with Joseph listed as a journalist at just under 21 years of age. However, his heart was not entirely in that career, even though it was one of the faster growing occupations in the early 20th century.

While available records do not fully document the musical skill level of Northup, he did play the piano in public in the greater Chicago area. There is a 1904 piece published in New York with lyrics by a Joseph Northup. In spite of the publication being outside of the Chicago area, it is very possible that it is the same Northup, given his training as a wordsmith and his avocation for music. The uncommon spelling of Northup and lack of anyone else by this name having written any other composition further bolsters this position, but it is still difficult to confirm, so remains questionable.

What is clear is that by 1905 Northup was evidently not only playing some of the popular tunes and rags of the day, but had come up with one of his own. His Cannon Ball - A Characteristic Novelty, was a relatively flashy opus that required some modicum of skill to play at anything beyond a moderate tempo. Joseph's notation skills were evidently lacking. The piece was put to paper and arranged for public consumption by musician Thomas R. Confare, who at the time was working with the Victor Kremer Publishing Company Kremer had one of the more dense catalogs of piano ragtime available in the Midwest, and Cannon Ball became one of the crown jewels of that collection, being a brisk seller. It was released in at least two different colors, with lime green and bright red covers that were hard to miss. A later edition from Harold Rossiter, who had purchased the Kremer catalog, came in a third variation, that of orange. What is less known is that Kremer also released a song that Northup had composed with Morris S. Silver, a frequent lyricist with Confare, titled Carolina Dinah (I'se a-Waitin' Fo' You) that same year.

Many of the musicians that dealt with Kremer received at least some royalty for their work, which may have been the case with Northup [unconfirmed]. While no further known publications were forthcoming, he had perhaps gained enough confidence from this experience to strike out for a more ambitious venue. So around 1910 Joseph moved to San Francisco, becoming a Barbary Coast pianist for a while. The reportedly tall and stout Northup is listed there from 1910 to at least 1914 as a musician, competing with the likes of Glover Compton and Jay Roberts for playing jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 1912 and 1913 voter registries show him living at 2714 Sutter Street, listed as a musician. But either the considerable competition was too fierce or the income too scant. By 1916 Joseph had reverted to the occupation he was trained for, and was listed as a newspaper editor. In 1917 Northup moved south to Los Angeles, getting a job as a reporter with the Los Angeles Examiner. He is shown as employed there as the City Editor and living at the Stilwell Hotel on his 1918 draft record, which also describes the aging musician as having both gray hair and eyes. By 1920 he had moved to nearby Pasadena, sharing lodging with his widowed mother and her widowed sister Nellie R. Stiles. Joseph also showed as a widower, as Elizabeth had passed on in Los Angeles on September 11, 1918.

The trail goes somewhat cold here. Northup's name was seen on occasion in the Examiner through the mid-1920s. It may have been as a special correspondent, as he was listed again in Evanston as a lecturer at Northwestern University in their 1921 catalog. As further confirmation that Joseph was not entirely a west coast resident yet was that he was enumerated in the 1930 census in Evanston, still listed as a newspaper editor. His mother died in Evanston in 1934 at age 84. By the mid-1930s Joseph was again seen in southern California, now living in Long Beach. Joseph appears to have gotten married again around 1935. In the 1940 census he and his new wife Helen McDowell were up in the town of Three Lakes in far northern Wisconsin, with Joseph as a promotions manager for a local resort area. Newspaper mentions indicate that he had been in this position since perhaps 1936. Joseph was also an advocate for certain local factions on issues such as winter fishing and land use. Until 1943 the Northups maintained a residence in Long Beach for the winter months and Three Lakes for the spring and summer months, settling back in California when Joseph retired. In the 1944 voter roll Helen was listed as a laboratory inspector and Joseph simply as a manager.

The last record of Joseph C. Northup was in the Long Beach city directory for 1947, ironically published several months after his death in an Orange County hospital at age 66. Helen was shown still living at the same address in the 1950 voter registry. It would likely have been gratifying for him if were around long enough to hear the brisk selling 1950 Capitol Records release Honky Tonk Piano, which featured a Marvin Ash recording of Cannon Ball, the first of many during the 1950s Honky-Tonk craze.