https://folkopedia.info/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Dan_Tate 2026-05-09T14:59:51Z Revision history for this page on the wiki MediaWiki 1.45.3 https://folkopedia.info/index.php?title=Dan_Tate&diff=2597&oldid=prev 2007-03-27T13:19:06Z

<p>New page: &#039;&#039;&#039;Dan Tate:&#039;&#039;&#039; was born in 1896 and must at one time have known a phenomenal number of songs and banjo tunes.  Though frail and almost totally blind, his welcome to a complete strang...</p> <p><b>New page</b></p><div>&#039;&#039;&#039;Dan Tate:&#039;&#039;&#039; was born in 1896 and must at one time have known a phenomenal number of songs and banjo tunes.&amp;nbsp; Though frail and almost totally blind, his welcome to a complete stranger was as warm and genuine as could be.&amp;nbsp; After recording many of his songs in 1979 and 1980 I called to see him again in 1983.&amp;nbsp; “Did I sing you Lily Monroe?” he asked when I walked through his doorway.&amp;nbsp; “It must be about England, ‘cause they send for a ‘London’ doctor to heal up his wounds.”&amp;nbsp; He also recounted how one recent snowfall had almost ended his life.&amp;nbsp; “I thought I was a gonner, Mike. I woke up and it was quiet, real quiet; and cold, real cold.&amp;nbsp; The stove had gone out and I had no wood inside.&amp;nbsp; I tried to open the door but it just wouldn’t open.&amp;nbsp; The house had just about disappeared in the snow.&amp;nbsp; Well ... I wrapped some blankets around me and sat in the chair, expecting to die.&amp;nbsp; And do you know?&amp;nbsp; It wasn’t long before I heard my friends coming to dig me out!”&amp;nbsp; Strength of character, tenacity and sensitivity are words that I’d use to describe Dan and his neighbours.<br /> <br /> Dan had been recorded for the Library of Congress by Professor Fletcher Collins, of Elon College, NC.&amp;nbsp; Library records date these recording to 1941, although Dan was adamant that they had been made in 1938.&amp;nbsp; I had heard one or two of Dan’s recordings prior to meeting him and found that he still just loved to sing.&amp;nbsp; One morning he began to talk about ‘the war’.&amp;nbsp; I thought that he was talking about the Great War, until he began to describe the American Civil War Battle of Shiloh.&amp;nbsp; As a young man he had known people who had fought in the Civil War.&amp;nbsp; Never before had history seemed so real!<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> &#039;&#039;Part of the booklet notes, written by Mike Yates, to the Musical Traditions Records CDs Far in the Mountains (MTCD321-4)&#039;&#039;</div>

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