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Details
EMMETT, Daniel Decatur (1815-1904), minstrel and song-writer. Autograph inscription signed: "Daniel D. Emmett." author of Dixie's Land (1859) "Den I wish I was in Dixie!" N.p., n.d. 1 page, 4to, 202 x 174 mm. In bold ink on a sheet apparently removed from an autograph album, verso with inscription dated 1904. Rare.
A line from the refrain from a celebrated minstrel song which became the anthem of the Confederacy. Emmett organized one of the first minstrel companies in 1842. "Dixie" was composed for Bryant's Minstrels, a popular traveling minstrel company, its words evoking slaves' happy memories of life on a tobacco farm on Long Island owned by a family named Dixie. The song was apparently first performed in New York in April 1859; the words were published later that year, but the song's huge popularity came with its performance in April 1860 in New Orleans, in the musical extravaganza Pocahontas. A band leader in Montgomery, Alabama, arranged "Dixie" as a march and it was played at the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States on 16 February 1861. In spite of its rebel associations, President Lincoln was quite fond of "Dixie." (See James Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music, pp.196-199).
A line from the refrain from a celebrated minstrel song which became the anthem of the Confederacy. Emmett organized one of the first minstrel companies in 1842. "Dixie" was composed for Bryant's Minstrels, a popular traveling minstrel company, its words evoking slaves' happy memories of life on a tobacco farm on Long Island owned by a family named Dixie. The song was apparently first performed in New York in April 1859; the words were published later that year, but the song's huge popularity came with its performance in April 1860 in New Orleans, in the musical extravaganza Pocahontas. A band leader in Montgomery, Alabama, arranged "Dixie" as a march and it was played at the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States on 16 February 1861. In spite of its rebel associations, President Lincoln was quite fond of "Dixie." (See James Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music, pp.196-199).