When it comes to music, Daniel has done it all
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Singer, musician, educator, potter, weaver, winter sports enthusiast, this skilled artisan has demonstrated his love of learning and creativity in an amazing variety of endeavors.
In the midst of all this, he has led a fascinating life. He has been a world traveler, been a member of the Fred Waring Orchestra, sung for President Roosevelt, taught American soldiers to snow-ski after W.W.II, sheared live sheep at local schools and spun yarn from the wool, and participated in writing an alma mater in 1957 for the newly established City High School. And somewhere along the line he found the time to get married and raise a family.
But for a big portion of his life, Daniel was band director at local high schools.
“That’s right,” he said, tongue firmly in cheek, “I was a noise maker.”
For 39 years, Daniel recruited and taught musicians to participate in marching band.
“I came here as the first band director at Central,” Daniel said. “That was in 1948. Then I taught in Florida for five years, and came back to Central. Then they opened up City High School and I moved from Central to City High School the first year it was opened. I stayed there until 1964. Then I went with the state department of education and became supervisor of music, art and drama for the State of Tennessee.”
He remained there until he retired in 1981.
Daniel says his love of music was passed down through the family.
“I had two brothers and they played guitars,” Daniel said. “They were always banging around on those, and that was my first start I guess.”
He was in high school though before he learned to read music.
“I was in Glee Club and that sort of thing,” Daniel said, “and they had a music class, I was in it, and that’s where I started trying to learn to read music.”
His brothers, Urby and Marshall, were also instrumental in his decision to go into teaching, and were actually his teachers for all of his elementary school years.
“I never had another teacher until I started high school,” Daniel said.
Daniel started college in 1940 at what was to become MTSU, then called Tennessee Teachers College, where he was influenced by music teacher E. May Saunders. Soon Daniel found himself in the Army Medical Corps, where he worked in an office and became the organist for the outfit playing organ for both Protestant and Catholic services.
Stationed in Europe during the war, he traveled extensively, eventually visiting 20 countries.
Though he spent the last part of his career in an administrative job, he says he always missed teaching, and particularly his band.
“I enjoy young people,” Daniel said. “For the 19 years I was in the State Department of Education, I missed my band here. I had a 130 piece band. I had built it from scratch. We had 700 in junior high and high school, and I had one-seventh of that population in one class alone.”
The band made several trips, including one to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras, and another to Washington, D.C. where it was the official state band at the Cherry Blossom festival.
Along with fellow musician Helen Elkins, and lyricists Elizabeth Womack and Edith Bryan, Daniel holds a unique place in Warren County musical history by composing an original alma mater for a local school.
“Out of nowhere came City High School,” Daniel said, “and they had to have an alma mater, so I flew in and I started writing it and Helen helped put the accompaniment to it. And that’s how we came to write it. And don’t ask me the words, because I’ve forgotten them,” he added with a grin.
Daniel is also known for his other artistic and crafting skills. He is an accomplished potter and weaver, and has dabbled in woodworking. In fact, his wife Lillian, a teacher as well, gave him his first woodworking equipment soon after they were married, most of which he still has. They have a son, Kenny, and a daughter named, appropriately, Melody, now Melody Green.
The Daniel have two homes filled with memorabilia from their storied lives and teaching careers, but one of the most fascinating stories has to be when Daniel, whose first love was choral music, sang for President Roosevelt. After basic training, Daniel became part of an Army sponsored glee club picked to sing at bond rallies. At a performance in Little Rock, Ark. Daniel noticed the security was particularly heavy, but no one knew why.
“We sang for the Palm Sunday service there at Little Rock,” Daniel recalled, “and when I walked out on the stage, there sat President Roosevelt. I almost went through the floor.”
Daniel, who was a great admirer of Roosevelt, said he became so flustered he forgot the words to the solo he was to perform.
“Finally, just before I was to come in, I woke up to the fact and I got my cue,” Daniel said, “and came in on pitch on it.”
Now Daniel says the thing he remembers most about Roosevelt is how he shook him up so badly he almost missed his cue. Almost. With most everything he has done in his life, Daniel has rarely missed a cue. He has become an integral part of Warren County musical history with the City High School alma mater, and firmly placed himself in the memories and hearts of his students in whom he instilled the love of the melodic art that has entwined itself through his life and career: music.