1. Daniel Decatur Emmett was an American composer, entertainer, and founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition, the Virginia Minstrels.
12 Facts About Dan Emmett
1. 2.
Dan Emmett is most remembered as the composer of the song "Dixie".
3.
Dan Emmett was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, then a frontier region.
4.
Dan Emmett learned popular tunes from his musical mother, and taught himself to play the fiddle.
5.
At age 13, Emmett became apprenticed to a printer and in 1836, when he was 21, enlisted in the United States Army.
6.
Dan Emmett became an expert fifer and drummer at Newport Barracks, Newport, Kentucky.
7.
Dan Emmett married Catharine Rives in 1853 in New York City, and they remained together until her death in 1875.
8.
Four years later, Dan Emmett married Mary Bird in Chicago, Illinois; Dan Emmett did not have children.
9.
The song became a runaway hit, especially in the South, and it was the piece for which Dan Emmett was most well known.
10.
In 1862, Emmett published his own Fifer's and Drummer's Guide in cooperation with George G Bruce.
11.
Dan Emmett was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
12.
Dan Emmett published at least 30 songs between 1843 and 1865, most of which are banjo tunes or walkarounds.