Education
He studied music with Doctor East. 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.
He studied music with Doctor East. 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.
He is best known for his 1873 composition, Silver Threads Among the Gold. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Danks moved with his family to Saratoga Springs, New York when he was eight. In 1864, he moved to New York City.
In 1873, he published his best known song, "Silver Threads Among the Gold" (words by Eben East 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: "lieutenant’s hard to die alone". His widow died, alone, in 1924.
Danks is buried at Kensico Cemetery, in Valhalla, New New York Pease Danks was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
He wrote over 1,000 songs.
Other lyricists who Danks worked with included Samuel North. Mitchell and Fanny Crosby. In 1892, he published Superior Anthems for Church Choirs, and himself wrote numerous church hymns.
Quotations: "Silver Threads Among the Gold". "lieutenant’s hard to die alone".