Othar Turner

Othar Turner, nicknamed "Otha", was born in Canton,{{cite book |last=Govenar |first=Alan |year=2001 |chapter=Othar Turner: African American Fife Player |title=Masters of Traditional Arts: A Biographical Dictionary |volume=2 (K-Z)|location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=ABC-Clio |pages=637–639|isbn=1576072401|oclc=47644303}} Madison County, Mississippi in 1907. He moved further north, living his entire life in northern Mississippi hill country as a farmer near Como, Mississippi in Panola County. In 1923, aged 16, he learned to play fifes fashioned out of rivercanes and gradually learned other instruments as well.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, scholars from nearby colleges made field recordings of Turner and his friends' music, as examples of local traditions, but did not release these. Turner's Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (which consisted of friends and relatives) primarily played at farm parties. In the early 1970s the band was called "The Gravel Springs Fife & Drum Band" with Napoleon Strickland, GD Young and "Cag" Young as well as Bernice Turner as members of the group. Turner, along with bandmates Jessie Mae Hemphill and Abe Young, performed as the "Mississippi Fife and Drum Corps" in episode number 1509 of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood that aired on November 18, 1982.{{cite web|url=http://www.fci.org/videos/mrn-episode-1509.html |title=Lady Aberlin Forgets Daniel|publisher=The Fred Rogers Company |access-date=2017-12-01 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111119144136/http://fci.org/videos/mrn-episode-1509.html |archivedate=2011-11-19 }}

The group began to receive wider recognition for their Hill country blues in the 1990s. They were included in Mississippi Blues in Memphis Vol. 1 in 1993, followed by inclusion in many other blues collections. They released their critically acclaimed album, Everybody Hollerin' Goat (1998) on Birdman Records. This was followed by From Senegal to Senatobia in 1999, which combined bluesy fife and drum music with musicians credited as the "Afrossippi Allstars".

The title, Everybody Hollerin' Goat, refers to a tradition Turner began in the late 1950s of hosting Labor Day picnics. He would personally butcher a goat and cook it in an iron kettle, and his band would provide musical entertainment. The picnics began as a neighborhood and family gathering. The event 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, the film's director, featured Turner in his 2003 PBS mini-series The Blues, discussing the 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 Turner, who died a week before he was scheduled to record for the album. His granddaughter and protégé Shardé Thomas, then 12 years old, filled in for the recording sessions.

Othar Turner died aged 95, on February 27, 2003. His daughter, Bernice Turner Pratcher, who had been living in a nursing home because of terminal breast cancer, died the same day, aged 48.{{cite news |last=Stolle |first=Roger |date=April 10, 2003 |title=Tribute honors blues legend Othar Turner |work=The Clarksdale Press Register |location=Clarksdale, Mississippi}} A joint funeral service was held on March 4, 2003, in Como, Mississippi. A procession leading to the cemetery was led by the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, with his granddaughter Shardé Thomas, then 13 years old, at its head playing the fife.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}}

Turner was a recipient of a 1992 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.{{cite web |url=https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/year/1992|title=NEA National Heritage Fellowships 1992 |author= |website=www.arts.gov |publisher=National Endowment for the Arts |access-date=December 14, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200629085045/https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/year/1992 |archive-date=June 29, 2020 |url-status=dead}}

He was nominated for two Blues Music Awards (formerly the W.C. Handy Blues Awards) in 2000 and 2003 in the Blues Instrumentalist: Other category.{{cite web |url=https://blues.org/awards/ |title=Award Winners and Nominees [search] |author= |date=2017 |website=blues.org |publisher=The Blues Foundation |access-date=1 December 2017}}

In 2009, Turner was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Como.{{Cite web|title=Otha Turner Trail Marker Dedication - Delta Blues Museum, Clarksdale MS|url=https://www.deltabluesmuseum.org/news-otha-turner.aspx|access-date=2020-07-23|website=www.deltabluesmuseum.org}}

Maurice Watkins portrayed a fife—playing character named Othar in the 2004 Coen brothers' film The Ladykillers.

• Gravel Springs Fife and Drum (1971), short film directed by Bill Ferris, recorded by David Evans, and edited by Judy Peiser.{{cite web |url=https://www.folkstreams.net/films/gravel-springs |title=Gravel Springs Fife and Drum |author= |date=2022 |website=Folkstreams |access-date=November 3, 2023}}
• Homeplace (1975, filmed in 1972), short film by Michael Ford, audio by James Forward. Produced by Yellow Cat Productions, Washington, DC.{{cite web |url=https://www.folkstreams.net/films/homeplace |title=Homeplace |author= |date=2022 |website=Folkstreams |access-date=November 3, 2023}}
• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1982), episode 1509: "Friends: Daniel Feels Forgotten"

{{Reflist}}

• "Othar Turner, Cane Fife Maker" in: {{cite book|author=William R. Ferris|title=Afro-American Folk Art and Crafts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kGTqWTfN1ecC&pg=PA173|access-date=11 May 2011|date=30 October 1986|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-60473-391-4|pages=173–}}
• "Music of Othar Turner is Worth Hollerin' About" in: {{cite magazine |last=Morris |first=Chris |title=Music of Othar Turner is Worth 'Hollerin' About |magazine=Billboard |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Eg8EAAAAMBAJ |access-date=November 2, 2023 |date=February 28, 1998|publisher=Nielsen Business Media, Inc.|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Eg8EAAAAMBAJ/page/n55 60] |issn=0006-2510}}
• "Othar Turner" in: {{cite book|author1=Vladimir Bogdanov|author2=Chris Woodstra|author3=Stephen Thomas Erlewine|title=All music guide to the blues: the definitive guide to the blues|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qYtz7kEHegEC&pg=PA567|access-date=11 May 2011|year=2003|publisher=Hal Leonard Corporation|isbn=978-0-87930-736-3|page=567}}
• "Othar Turner & The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band" in: {{cite book|author=CMJ Network, Inc.|title=CMJ New Music Monthly|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aSoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA52|access-date=11 May 2011|date=June 1998|publisher=CMJ Network, Inc.|page=52|issn=1074-6978}}
• {{cite book|author=Robert Nicholson|title=Mississippi: the blues today!|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UoMimYA088EC&pg=PA94|access-date=11 May 2011|year=1998|publisher=Da Capo Press|isbn=978-0-306-80883-8|page=94}}

• {{Official website|http://www.othaturner.com/}}
• {{AllMusic|artist/othar-turner-mn0003534594}}
• {{Discogs artist}}
• {{IMDb name|name=Otha Turner|id=1717356}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20051023025450/http://www.epitonic.com/artists/othaturnerandtheafrossippiallstars.html Otha Turner and the Afrossippi Allstars at Epitonic.com]

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Category:1907 births

Category:2003 deaths

Category:National Heritage Fellowship winners

Category:Farmers from Mississippi

Category:Fife players

Category:Blues musicians from Mississippi

Category:People from Canton, Mississippi

Category:Birdman Records artists

Category:Mississippi Blues Trail

Category:20th-century African-American musicians

Category:21st-century African-American people

Category:20th-century American flautists