Hibernian Chronicle 142 years ago: Emmett pens a Southern anthem

By Edward T. O’Donnell

One hundred forty-two years ago this week, on April 4, 1859, Daniel Emmett did it again. Asked by the manager of his minstrel troupe to write a new song in just two days, he at first came up empty. But as he sat at his kitchen table on a cold and rainy April morning trying to break his writer’s block, he muttered a phrase he’d picked up while traveling with the circus: "I wish a was in Dixie." As he explained what it meant to his perplexed wife (literally, I wish I was down South where it was warm), inspiration struck. One day later his manager had another hit song. Not long thereafter the restive South had its anthem.

Daniel Decatur Emmett was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, in 1815. From an early age he demonstrated a gift for music, teaching himself to play the fiddle and writing songs before he was 10. He wrote his first popular song, "Old Dan Tucker," when he was 15. After a five-year stint in the U.S. Army, he hit the road as a musician with a series of traveling circuses.

His big break came in 1842 when he joined three other musician-singers to form the nation’s first minstrel band, the Virginia Minstrels. Their act — the minstrel show — became one of the most popular forms of entertainment to emerge in the 19th Century. Emmett and his partners appeared in "black face," performing songs, dances, skits and routines based on racist caricatures of singing and dancing African American slaves. Their first performance, in February 1843 at the Bowery Amphitheater in New York, catapulted them to national fame and touched off a nationwide infatuation with minstrels routines. The Virginia Minstrels broke up in 1844, but by then Daniel Emmet was a household name.

Emmet was not the only Irish performer to play a key role in the popularization and development of the minstrel show. The acknowledged "father" of the American minstrel show was an Irishman, Thomas Dartmouth Rice, popularly known as "Jim Crow" (after his popular "Jump Jim Crow" dance routine). As an early black impersonator, he established a vogue for black-faced performance in the 1820s and ’30s that Emmett transformed into the minstrel show. Virtually all the best-known companies, including Bryant’s Minstrels, Campbell’s Minstrels, Haverly’s Minstrels, and Christy’s Minstrels comprised Irish performers.

Emmett continued to write popular songs (among them "Blue Tailed Fly" and "Turkey in the Straw") and perform in minstrel shows well into the 1850s. In 1858, he joined the famous Bryant’s Minstrels (comprising the three O’Brien brothers). One year later came the fateful day when the manager implored him to write a new song to boost their sagging audience appeal.

Once he’d hit upon the refrain — "I wish I was in Dixie" — the rest of the song came quickly. The theme was not surprising — a romanticized and idealized vision of the plantation South. Such songs were all the rage at the time, courtesy of another Irish American songster, Stephen Foster ("Carry Me Back To Old Virginny" and "My Old Kentucky Home").

Within days of its debut on the night of April 4, 1859, "Dixie" became a national sensation. Music publishers couldn’t keep up with demand for sheet music as bands and minstrels scrambled to learn the hit song. Unfortunately for Emmett, few people bothered to respect his copyright and pay him royalties for use or publication of the song. Of the untold hundreds of thousands of dollars earned on the song, Emmett received a scant $600.

Two years later, with the outbreak of the Civil War, "Dixie" was branded a treasonous song in the North and purged from the repertoire of virtually every band and minstrel group. Conversely, in the South "Dixie" took on a new life as the unofficial anthem of the Confederacy. Bands played it at military recruiting rallies and at Jefferson Davis’ inauguration. Confederate soldiers sang it as they marched off to battle. It was a rather remarkable fate for a song written in New York City by a Yankee born in Ohio. Emmett himself could scarcely believe it and spent much of the war explaining to anyone who would listen that he was a Union man and had penned it two years before the war began.

When the Civil War finally came to an end in April 1865, Emmett’s song became a symbol of reconciliation. Washington was wild with celebration on April 10 following news of Lee’s surrender. That evening a crowd and brass band arrived at the White House and serenaded the president. Lincoln made a brief appearance from a window and gently rebuffed the crowd’s call for a speech. Then, pointing to the band, he called upon them to play "Dixie." It was, he told the crowd, "one of the best tunes I ever heard." Thus did Emmett’s song retake its place as a national favorite.

HIBERNIAN HISTORY WEEK

April 5, 1955: Richard J. Daley wins election as mayor of Chicago, beginning his extraordinary political career as "Boss" of the Windy City.

April 9, 1916: The German vessel "Aud" sets sail for Ireland loaded with guns and ammunition for the planned Easter Rising.

April 10, 1838: Fr. Theobold Mathew, Ireland’s temperance priest, begins his crusade against alcohol.

HIBERNIAN BIRTHDATES

April 5, 1916: Academy Award winning actor Gregory Peck born in La Jolla, Calif.

April 6, 1927: Jazz musician Gerry Mulligan born in New York City.

April 7, 1873: Baseball player and manager John McGraw born in Truxton, N.Y.

Readers may contact Edward T. O’Donnell at odonnell@PastWise.com.