John Philip Sousa served as the seventeenth director of "The President's Own" from 1880 to1892. The most famous director of the band, he wrote the national march The Stars and Stripes Forever and the official march of the Marine Corps Semper Fidelis.

Unequalled by his predecessors, John Philip Sousa is responsible for bringing the United States Marine Band to an unprecedented level of excellence: a standard upheld by every Marine Band director since. Sousa grew up with the Marine Band, and his intimate knowledge of the band coupled with his great ability provided the ideal medium to showcase the marches which would earn him the title, the "March King."

Sousa was born November 6, 1854, at 636 G Street, SE, Washington, D.C., near the Marine Barracks where his father, Antonio, was a musician in the Marine Band. He received his grammar school education in Washington and for several of his school years enrolled in a private conservatory of music operated by John Esputa, Jr. There he studied piano and most of the orchestral instruments, but his first love was the violin. John Philip Sousa gained great proficiency on the violin, and at the age of thirteen he was almost persuaded to join a circus band. However, his father intervened and enlisted him as an apprentice musician in the Marine Band. Except for a period of six months, Sousa remained in the band until he was twenty.

In addition to his musical training in the Marine Band, he studied music theory and composition with George Felix Benkert, a noted Washington orchestra leader and teacher.

After his discharge from the Marine Corps, Sousa remained in Washington for a time, conducting and playing the violin. He toured with several traveling theater orchestras and moved, in 1876, to Philadelphia. There he worked as a composer, arranger, and proofreader for publishing houses. Sousa was fascinated by the operetta form and toured with a company producing the musical Our Flirtation, for which he wrote the incidental music and the march. While on tour in St. Louis, he received a telegram offering him the leadership of the Marine Band in Washington. He accepted and reported for duty on October 1, 1880, becoming the band’s seventeenth leader.

The Marine Band was Sousa’s first experience conducting a military band, and he approached musical matters unlike most of his predecessors. He replaced much of the music in the library with symphonic transcriptions and changed the instrumentation to meet his needs. Rehearsals became exceptionally strict, and he shaped his musicians into the country’s premier military band. Marine Band concerts began to attract discriminating audiences, and the band’s reputation began to spread widely.

Sousa first received acclaim in military band circles with the writing of his march The Gladiator in 1886. From that time on he received ever-increasing attention and respect as a composer. In 1888, he wrote Semper Fidelis. Dedicated to “the officers and men of the Marine Corps,” it is traditionally known as the "official" march of the Marine Corps.

In 1889, Sousa wrote the Washington Post march to promote an essay contest sponsored by the newspaper; the march was soon adapted and identified with the new dance called the two-step. The Washington Post became the most popular tune in America and Europe, and critical response was overwhelming. A British band journalist remarked that since Johann Strauss, Jr., was called the "Waltz King" that American bandmaster Sousa should be called the "March King." With this, Sousa’s regal title was coined and has remained ever since.

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