Othar Turner

Othar Turner (born June 2, 1908 in Rankin County , Mississippi ; † February 26, 2003 in Gravel Springs , Mississippi ), sometimes also written Otha Turner , was an American musician, one of the last masters on the Fife (German: Schwegel ), a forerunner of the transverse flute . The traditional music style Fife and Drum is considered to be one of the origins of the blues .

Turner lived in Gravel Springs , not far from his birthplace, as a farmer and musician. As a child he had already played the harmonica. He first heard the Fife when he was 16 , played by a neighbor named R. E. Williams. Against his mother's wishes, he learned the instrument and cut his own flutes out of reeds. Sid Hemphill and Napolian Strickland , who also played Fife , were among his musical companions .

With his band The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, which included friends and relatives, Turner performed at local festivals. In the 1960s they made their first recordings, which appeared in various anthologies . In 1978 she recorded Alan Lomax for his documentary The Land Where the Blues Began .

Over time, Turner's reputation and his music spread. In the early 1970s he played for the first time at blues and folk festivals and took part in a television program for children. Turner has had its own annual Labor Day festival since the 1950s , which has grown from a family picnic to an insider tip for a growing fan base. Each time Turner slaughtered a goat himself, the meat of which he then boiled in a large cauldron.

In 1998 Turner's first album, Everybody Hollerin 'Goat , was released, which was enthusiastically received and selected by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the essential albums of the decade. In 1999 the album From Senegal to Senatobia followed , which traced the African origins of Fife and Drum music. The song Shimmy She Wobble from the album Everybody Hollerin 'Goat was heard in Martin Scorsese's film Gangs of New York in 2002 .

Othar Turner received numerous awards in his later years. He died in February 2003 of complications from pneumonia. On the same day, his daughter Bernice died of cancer. At the funeral service for the two, Turner's granddaughter Shardé Thomas played Fife, just as she had learned from her grandfather.

Web links

• Othar Turner biography (English)