‘            Fancy Gap’s Dan Tate found his way into clawhammer and mountain ballad history through serendipity.  It first happened when he was strolling by his neighbor’s house in the high mountain community of Fancy Gap in 1941.  As he passed banjoist Calvin Cole’s house, he heard banjo music and singing coming from inside.  Always searching for someone to play or sing with, Dan opened the front door and saw Calvin playing and singing.  Dan joined right in on the old song “Sally Brown.” What he didn’t notice was that Fletcher Collins, a collector from the Smithsonian was in the living room recording Calvin.

            Collins just let the tape run and collected the duet for the Library.  Dan’s accompaniment was good enough that Fletcher put him down on the recording and subsequent liner notes and Dan would become a musician “of interest,” in the Smithsonian files.  Later he would be discovered again.  This time by field recorder Peter Hoover, who heard his voice on the Calvin Cole recordings and became interested.

            In the early 1960’s Peter loaded up his recording equipment in New York and headed for the Fancy Gap area to find Dan Tate and hopefully record more of his music. He had sent a letter simply addressed to “Dan Tate, Fancy Gap, Virginia,” requesting to visit Dan.  In a short time, Peter received a postcard back, telling him to “come on,” but it had no return address. 

            When Peter made it to Fancy Gap, he began driving the Blue Ridge Parkway, asking folks he saw if they knew where Dan Tate’s House was. Finally, about to give up, Peter picked up a hitchhiker.  Of course, he asked the man if he knew Dan Tate. “Why do you want to find Dan Tate?,’’ the hitchhiker asked him. When Peter told him, the man said, “OK, yes, I can tell you where he lives.”  A couple of miles down the road the hitchhiker started to giggle and revealed that he was Dan Tate. Serendipity struck again.

            Dan grew up in intense poverty. His father was a subsistence farmer of the rocky peaks and hillsides and his mother was busy trying to feed Dan and his 11 siblings.  Although it is thought that Dan’s father played banjo, it was his mother, who collected the family songs and ballads and gave to Dan the family song book, full of ancient songs and ballads that had been passed down from her Scots Irish ancestors and carefully documented. Dan was a quick learner and set about, as a child and later as a young man, learning both orally from his mother and sisters and from the coveted song book the ballads and songs of his history.

            Dan was married in 1943 to Laura Edwards, who was 20 years younger than he was. The two settled into the rigors of a quiet mountain life, in a two room cabin without electricity or running water.  In isolation, Dan continued to learn the family songs and became accomplished as a “banjo man,” using the instrument to back up his ballad singing and learning a fiddle tunes from neighbors like Calvin Cole.

            Dan continued to live a subsistence life in poverty. One visitor opened his ice box to only find a six pack of Coke. Dan told another visitor that he only ate “Bisquick straight from the box.” Although one of the most scenic spots in SW Virginia, filled with beautiful vistas in every direction, living in this area was typical of the extreme poverty of the 1950’s and 60’s Appalachia.

            When Serendipity struck for a second time, in the form of Peter Hoover, Dan was ready.  Hoover recorded a tape full of tunes, songs and stories.  These tapes became a goldmine for folklorists to dig through, representing both ancient ballads from the British Isles to dust bowl songs from the 20th century.  Ballads like “Wind and Rain” and “The Mermaid” became assimilated into the Folk Revival.

            Ray Alden, another folklorist and founder of “The Field Recorders Collective” label also visited and recorded Dan. Along with Hoover’s recordings we have a vast overview of the Tate family heritage in music and Dan’s unique way of playing and singing – unique yet firmly rooted in Virginia Blue Ridge tradition.