Hart Pease Danks
{{short description|American songwriter}}
{{Infobox musical artist
| name = Hart Pease Danks
| image =Hart Pease Danks.jpg
| caption =
| image_size =
| background = non_performing_personnel
| birth_name =
| alias =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1834|4|6}}
|birth_place =New Haven, Connecticut
| death_date = {{death date and age|1903|11|20|1834|4|6}}
|death_place =Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
| instrument =
| genre =
| occupation = Songwriter
| years_active = 1850s-1890s
| label =
| associated_acts =
}}
Hart Pease Danks (6 April 1834 – 20 November 1903) was an American musician who specialized in composing, singing and leading choral groups. He is best known for his 1873 composition, Silver Threads Among the Gold.
Biography
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Danks moved with his family to Saratoga Springs, New York when he was eight. He studied music with Dr. E. Whiting, later moving to Chicago, where he worked as a carpenter in his father's construction business before embarking on a full-time music career.Sanjek, Russell. [https://books.google.com/books?id=7UbS22L6neQC&pg=PA255 American popular music and its business: the first four hundred years, Vol. II 1790 to 1909], p. 255-56 (1988)
File:Hart Pease Danks Gravestone.jpg, in Valhalla, New York]]
In 1858, he married Hattie R. Colahan.{{cite book|first1=E. Douglas|last1=Bomberger|title=Brainard's Biographies of American Musicians|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hx3fH94Z7HcC&pg=PA79|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|date=30 November 1999|isbn=978-0-313-30782-9|via=Google Books|pages=79–80}} In 1864, he moved to New York City. In 1873, he published his best known song, "Silver Threads Among the Gold" (words by Eben E. Rexford), which sold over three million copies. Having sold the rights to it, though, he died penniless in a boarding house in Philadelphia, his last written words: "It's hard to die alone".(21 November 1903). [https://www.nytimes.com/1903/11/21/archives/composer-found-dead-beside-his-piano-hart-pease-dank-author-of.html Composer Found Dead Beside His Piano], The New York TimesHoag, Doane R. (8 July 1988). [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8NsxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SOUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6277%2C6321167 His Love Ballad Was Not For Him], Reading Eagle His widow died, alone, in 1924.Brisbane, Arthur (30 March 1924). [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jB8bAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2UkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6937,2675124&dq= Today], Pittsburgh Press Danks is buried at Kensico Cemetery, in Valhalla, New York.
Pease Danks was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. He wrote over 1,000 songs.[https://books.google.com/books?id=4NkbAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA447 The National cyclopaedia of American biography, Vol. VIII], p. 447 (1898)
His works also include several operettas, including Zanie (published 1887, to a libretto by Fanny Crosby)who, under various pseudonyms, provided texts to many of his songs. See IMSLP and Neptune (2002) and Pauline, or the Belle of Saratoga (ca.1874).{{cite book|title=Water Music: Music-Making in the Spas of Europe and North America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WuEvbA2HnfIC&pg=PA169|page=169|year=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=November 5, 2012|last=Bradley|first=Ian C.|isbn = 9780195327342}}
Other collaborators and contributions.
- Other lyricists who Danks worked with included Samuel N. Mitchell and Fanny Crosby.
- In 1892, he published Superior Anthems for Church Choirs, and himself wrote numerous church hymns.[https://books.google.com/books?id=Mm20AAAAIAAJ&q=%22Superior+Anthems+for+Church+Choirs%22 Our American music, three hundred years of it], p. 609 (1954)
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{Shof|id=197|name=Hart Pease Danks}}
- {{IMSLP|id=Danks, Hart Pease}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Danks, Hart Pease}}
Category:American male composers
Category:Songwriters from Connecticut
Category:Musicians from New Haven, Connecticut
Category:People from Saratoga Springs, New York
Category:Burials at Kensico Cemetery
Category:Songwriters from New York (state)