Dan W. Quinn

Daniel William Quinn ( 1859 – November 7, 1938) was an American tenor. He was one of the first American singers to become popular in the new medium of recorded music. Quinn was a very successful recording artist whose career spanned from 1892 to 1918. Quinn recorded many of his hits in the legendary Tin Pan Alley of New York City.

Biography 1902 Victor Monarch recording of Quinn performing "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?" Dan W. Quinn was born in 1859 or 1860 in New York City to Benjamin Bernard and Sabina Leonora Quinn ( Wilds). (His obituary in Variety gives his birthplace as New York.) He began singing in the choir of the Church of the Heavenly Rest (Episcopal) as a child. As a young adult, he worked as an ironworker and moonlighted as a singer at local functions in the New York area.

‘Discovered’ at one of these functions in January 1892, Quinn made his first recording in New York and quickly achieved success. Limitations of technology at the time meant that not all voices were suitable to be recorded; Quinn's voice was one that recorded well. He sang for all the major record labels of his day, including Berliner, Columbia, Edison, Gramophone, Paramount and Victor. In 1898, Columbia signed him to a year-long exclusive contract, but within days of its expiration he was making a record for Berliner.

At age 22 Quinn married 15-year-old Mary Jane Ritchie, known to the family as Jennie. They had six children: Dan Jr, Ritchie, Arthur (who died in infancy), Mary, known as Lidie (later Hunsberger), Jane (Manderson), and Frank. They lived in a reconstructed mansion on West 20th Street, near 10th Avenue, until about 1898, when they moved to 442 West 24th Street, in a row of two-story houses known as Chelsea cottages. Later, in response to Jennie's inability to use stairs due to worsening rheumatism, they moved to a flat at 312 West 20th Street. Quinn retired from recording in 1906 but continued to work in vaudeville,