Othar Turner

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Othar Turner (a.k.a. Otha Turner) (b. east of Canton, Mississippi, June 2, 1907; d. February 26, 2003), was one of the last well-known fife players in the vanishing American fife and drum musical tradition. He lived his entire life in northern Mississippi as a farmer, where in 1923 at the age of 16 he first learned to play the fife and make them from rivercane.

Turner and The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (which consisted of friends and relatives) primarily played at farm parties. They began to receive wider recognition in the 1990s. They appeared on Mississippi Blues in Memphis Vol. 1 in 1993, followed by inclusion in many other blues collections. They released their own critically acclaimed album Everybody Hollerin' Goat in 1998. This was followed by From Senegal to Senatobia in 1999, which combined their bluesy fife and drum music with African musicians credited as "the Afrossippi Allstars" (R.L. Boyce, Luther Dickinson, Andre Evans, Bernice Evans, Rodney Evans, Sharde Evans, K.K. Freeman, Morikeba Kouyate, Matthew Rappaport, Musa Sutton, Aubrey Turner, Manu Walton, Abe Young).

The title of Everybody Hollerin' Goat refers to a tradition Turner began in the late 1950s of hosting Labor Day picnics where he would personally butcher and cook a goat in an iron kettle, and his band would provide musical entertainment. The picnics began as a neighborhood and family gathering; it grew over the years to attract musical fans, first from Memphis, Tennessee, and later from all over the world.

The song "Shimmy She Wobble" from Everybody Hollerin' Goat was featured in the 2002 film Gangs of New York. Martin Scorsese also featured Othar in his 2003 PBS mini-series "The Blues" as a link between African rhythms and American Blues. The concept was continued on the 2003 album "Mississippi to Mali" by Corey Harris. The album was dedicated to Othar, who died a week before he was scheduled to record for the album. At only 12 years of age, Othar's granddaughter and protégé, Shardé Thomas filled in for the recording sessions.

Othar Turner died in Gravel Springs, Mississippi on February 27th at the age of 94. His daughter Bernice, who had been living in a nursing home for some time suffering from cancer, died that same day. She was 48. Funeral services were held for Othar and Bernice on Tuesday, March 4th in Como, Mississippi. A procession leading to the cemetery was led by the Rising Star and Fife Band, with 13 year-old Sharde Thomas, Othar's granddaughter, at its head playing the fife taught to her by her grandfather.

[edit] Films

Gravel Springs Fife and Drum (1971). Filmed by Bill Ferris, recorded by David Evans, and edited by Judy Peiser. (Watch film: Gravel Springs Fife and Drum