Dan Emmett
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
songwriter and entertainer, founder of the first troupe of the blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
minstrel tradition.
Biography
Of IrishIrish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
ancestry, Dan Emmett was born at Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon, Ohio
Mount Vernon is a city in Knox County, Ohio, United States. The population was 16,990 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is named after Mount Vernon, the plantation owned by George Washington.-History:...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, then a frontier region. Growing up with little formal education, he learned popular tunes from his musical mother, and taught himself to play the fiddle. At age 13, he became an apprentice printer and enlisted in the United States Army. He became an expert fifer and drummer at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and published his own Fifer’s and Drummer’s Guide in 1862 in cooperation with George G. Bruce
George G. Bruce
George G. Bruce was an American drum major during the Civil War, best known for co-writing The Drummer's and Fifer's Guide with Daniel Decatur Emmett. The Guide was published in 1862, and remains well known as a source for music for the fife and drum. Bruce was a player of the drums, banjo, violin...
. After receiving his discharge from the army on July 8, 1835, he joined a Cincinnati circus. In 1840–1842 he toured with Angervine and other circuses as a black face banjoist and singer.
In association with Billy Whitlock
Billy Whitlock
William M. "Billy" Whitlock was an American blackface performer. He began his career in entertainment doing blackface banjo routines in circuses and dime shows, and by 1843, he was well known in New York City. He is best known for his role in forming the original minstrel troupe, the Virginia...
, Dick Pelham, and Frank Brower
Frank Brower
Francis "Frank" Marion Brower was an American blackface performer active in the mid-19th century. Brower began performing blackface song-and-dance acts in circuses and variety shows when he was 13. He eventually introduced the bones to his act, helping to popularize it as a blackface instrument...
, he organized the Virginia Minstrels
Virginia Minstrels
The Virginia Minstrels or Virginia Serenaders was a group of 19th century American entertainers known for helping to invent the entertainment form known as the minstrel show...
, which made their first appearance before a paying audience at the Chatham Theatre in New York City in 1843.
Although blackface performance, in which white men painted their hands and faces black and impersonated caricatures of black men and women, was already an established performance mode at that time—Thomas D. Rice
Thomas D. Rice
Thomas Dartmouth Rice was a white performer and playwright who used African American vernacular speech, song, and dance to become one of the most popular minstrel show entertainers of his time.-Background:...
had created the character of Jim Crow
Jump Jim Crow
Jump Jim Crow is a song and dance from 1828 that was done in blackface by white comedian Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice. The first song sheet edition appeared in the early 1830s, published by E. Riley. The number was supposedly inspired by the song and dance of a crippled African slave called Jim...
nearly a decade earlier, and blackface had been widely popular ever since—Emmett's group are said to be the first to "black up" an entire band rather than one or two performers. The group's full-length blackface performance is generally considered to have been the first true minstrel show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
: previous blackface acts were usually either an entr'acte
Entr'acte
' is French for "between the acts" . It can mean a pause between two parts of a stage production, synonymous to an intermission, but it more often indicates a piece of music performed between acts of a theatrical production...
for a play or one of many acts in a comic variety show.
Dan Emmett is traditionally credited with writing the famous song "Dixie
Dixie (song)
Countless lyrical variants of "Dixie" exist, but the version attributed to Dan Emmett and its variations are the most popular. Emmett's lyrics as they were originally intended reflect the mood of the United States in the late 1850s toward growing abolitionist sentiment. The song presented the point...
". The story that he related about its composition varied each time he told it, but the main points were that he composed the song in New York City while a member of Bryant's Minstrels
Bryant's Minstrels
Bryant's Minstrels was a blackface minstrel troupe that performed in the mid-19th century, primarily in New York City. The troupe was led by the O'Neill brothers from upstate New York, who took the stage name Bryant....
. The song was first performed by Emmett and the Bryants at Mechanics' Hall
Mechanics' Hall, New York City
For other buildings called Mechanics Hall, see Mechanics Hall.Mechanics' Hall was a meeting hall and theatre seating 2,500 people located at 472 Broadway in New York City, United States. It had a brown façade...
in New York City on April 4, 1859. The song became a runaway hit, especially in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
, and the piece for which Emmett was most well known. Emmett himself reportedly told a fellow minstrel that "If I had known to what use they [Southerners] were going to put my song, I will be damned if I'd have written it." After the South began using his song as a rally, Emmett wrote the fife and drum manual for the Union Army. Emmett's song was a favorite of President Abraham Lincoln, who said after the war ended in 1865: "I have always thought that 'Dixie' was one of the best tunes I ever heard. I had heard our adversaries had attempted to appropriate it. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it."
Another writer named William Shakespeare Hays
William Shakespeare Hays
William Shakespeare Hays , was an American poet and lyricist. He wrote some 350 songs over his career and sold as many as 20 million copies of his works. These pieces varied in tone from low comedy to sentimental and pious; his material was sometimes confused with that of Stephen Foster as a result...
(1837–1907) (pen name: Will S. Hays), claimed to be its true author. Members of the Snowden Family
Snowden Family Band
The Snowden Family Band was an 19th century African American musical group. The children of the Snowden family of Clinton, Knox County, Ohio, comprised the ensemble. The band's career stretched from before the American Civil War into living memory; no other African American band of their type...
of Knox County, Ohio
Knox County, Ohio
Knox County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. As of 2010, the population was 60,921. Its county seat is Mount Vernon and is named for Henry Knox, an officer in the American Revolutionary War who was later the first Secretary of War....
, have also been named as writers of the song.
Death and posthumous recognition
After a tour that was notably successful in the south Emmett retired to his hometown of Mount Vernon in 1888 where he died on June 28, 1904, aged 88 years. From the time of 1893 to the time of his death, he was aided by a weekly allowance from the Actors Fund of America. Emmett was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of FameSongwriters Hall of Fame
The Songwriters Hall of Fame is an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. It was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond. The goal is to create a museum but as of April, 2008, the means do not yet exist and so instead it is an online...
in 1970. In 1943, Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
released a film about his life entitled Dixie
Dixie (film)
Dixie is a 1943 Technicolor biographical film of American songwriter Daniel Decatur Emmett, starring Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. The movie is a musical directed by A. Edward Sutherland.The movie was only a moderate success and received mixed reviews...
. It starred Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
as Emmett. Numerous schools, businesses, and other institutions in Mount Vernon, Ohio, are named after Emmett. The official memorial to him is a large boulder with a placard attached located in front of the Knox County Historical Museum.
During Emmett’s lifetime, Emmett published at least 30 songs between 1843 and 1865, most of which are banjo tunes or walk-arounds. During 1859 and 1869, he composed another 25 tunes that are still in manuscript at the Ohio Historical Society, in Columbus.
A biographical film
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
of Daniel Decatur Emmett was produced in 1943
1943 in film
The year 1943 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 3 - 1st missing persons telecast * February 20 - American film studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor films....
, entitled Dixie
Dixie (film)
Dixie is a 1943 Technicolor biographical film of American songwriter Daniel Decatur Emmett, starring Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. The movie is a musical directed by A. Edward Sutherland.The movie was only a moderate success and received mixed reviews...
. Starring Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
and Dorothy Lamour
Dorothy Lamour
Dorothy Lamour was an American film actress. She is best remembered for appearing in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope .-Early life:Lamour was born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Carmen Louise Dorothy...
, it is a musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
directed by A. Edward Sutherland
A. Edward Sutherland
A. Edward Sutherland aka Eddie Sutherland was a film director and actor. Born Albert Edward Sutherland in London, he was from a theatrical family. His father, Al Sutherland, was a theatre manager and producer and his mother, Julie Ring, was a vaudeville performer...
.