Othar Turner

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

Turner lived in Gravel Springs, not far from his birthplace, as a farmer and musician. Even as a child he had played harmonica. At age 16, he first heard the Fife, played by a neighbor named R. E. Williams. Against the wishes of his mother, he learned to play the instrument, and cut his own flutes made ​​of reeds. His musical collaborators included Sid Hemphill and Napolian Strickland, who also played the Fife.

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

Over time, widespread reputation Turner and his music. The early 1970s, he played for the first time on blues and folk festivals and made into a television show for children. Since the 1950s, Turner had his own annual festival Labor Day, which evolved into the tip of a growing fan base from the Family Picnic. In this event, Turner slaughtered every time even a goat, whose flesh he then cooked in a cauldron.

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

Othar Turner has received numerous awards in his later years. He died in February 2003 from the effects of pneumonia. On the same day his daughter Bernice died of cancer. At the funeral for the two Turners granddaughter Sharde Thomas played the fife, as she had learned it from her grandfather.