In 1994, I was again at the Chicago Blues Festival, with my usual room booked at the Palmer House Hilton for the duration of the event, and nightly dinner reservations at Miller’s Pub to enjoy some of the world’s best baby back ribs.  It was Friday morning, and again, as usual, I had my day’s schedule planned-out as to which stages at the festival I would spend time at during the day’s blues proceedings.

It was particularly easy to plan Friday’s festival meanderings, because the event’s Front Porch Stage provided a lineup of blues talent that I considered essential witnessing.  The day’s lineup included the great fife player Othar Turner & His Mississippi Fife & Drum Band, Chicago harmonicist Billy Branch and Sons of Blues, singer Katherine Davis, pianists Erwin Helfer, Jimmy Walker, and Sid Wingfield, and guitarist Floyd McDaniels.  I was very excited about the day’s blues offerings (and this was just the daytime lineup; I forget who played The Petrillo Bandshell that evening).

The beauty of the Chicago Blues Festival has always been that there are a number of stages, each offering an amazing breadth of talent.  The Front Porch Stage was located just south off E. Jackson in Grant Park, and offered a somewhat shaded natural area where blues fans could throw a blanket upon the ground and listen to great blues in a relaxed, laid-back atmosphere.  While there would always be a large contingent of blues fans at The Front Porch Stage, generally it was akin to a Woodstock-esque gathering of blues enthusiasts.

Anticipation always builds as it gets closer to the start of the day’s blues presentation at the festival’s stages, and such was decidedly the case this Friday.  I had known of Othar Turner and his work for some time, but to be honest, he wasn’t the main artist I came to see this Friday.  Like fellow fife player, Napoleon Strickland, I was learned to a certain degree with Othar’s music, and the heritage of fife and drum music, but it had never been at the forefront of my blues-loving experience.  On this Friday, all that was about to change.

Suddenly, the most insistent, commanding, reverberating, and uplifting sound began to arise from the area behind The Front Porch Stage.  Drums were beating a mighty cadence, and the resonance of a shrill, but yet highly-pleasing, instrument pierced the very early afternoon Summer air.  And almost just as jarringly, from the back of the stage area to the right of it from the audience’s perspective, came an older black gentleman playing a fife; it seemed he joyously calling the day’s events to begin, leading a procession of individuals beating a delicious rhythm that complemented his call affirming the beginning of the day’s happenings.  He was clad in his long-sleeve flannel shirt, overalls, and hat.  This was Othar Turner saying, “Arise, let’s start the day, and all enjoy the rich heritage of this great music.”  It was a moment I have never forgotten.

Fife and drum music is an offshoot of the country blues tradition heralding from the 1800s that primarily entrenched itself in the northeastern Mississippi hill country.  It is not a complex music, and is one partially played with homemade instruments.  Fife and drum music is celebratory in nature, is meant to be danced to, and is often associated with gatherings of people such as at parties.  It is meant to be jubilant, and expressive of both a good time and heritage.

Without getting too deep in the weeds, fife and drum music finds its roots in the European military, with the music eventually making its way into black culture during the U.S. Revolutionary War, where many slaves were solicited to perform the duties of the music.  During the Reconstruction period in the U.S. in the later part of the 1800s, blacks began to integrate certain elements of their culture into their daily lives.  As the 1800s gave way to the 1900s, blacks in northeastern Mississippi started to transform traditional rhythmic percussion efforts into a polyrhythmic form (i.e., plying two different rhythmic tempos at once), also utilizing the simple cane flute.  The cane flute was a homespun instrument, constructed from any number of available materials, having anywhere from four to ten holes, with each cane flute, or fife, having a different tone.

Othar Turner, along with Napoleon Strickland, was one of the last “modern” fife performers.  Born in Mississippi in 1907, Turner lived in northern Mississippi, and worked as a farmer, and began his journey to becoming one of the most praised fife players right around the time he was 16 years of age.  Turner preferred to fashion his fifes from river canes.

There is a certain void in scholarly research as it pertains to Turner’s life, but in the 1950s, he was contributory in establishing and hosting a Labor Day celebration; a picnic, if you will.  Lore has it that Turner would procure and slaughter a goat for the event, preferring to prepare it in an iron kettle for everyone to enjoy.  It was at these picnics that Turner and his fife and drum band would perform, ensuring that the music would continue to be a living cultural artifact, and not one doomed to fade from existence.  It is said that these Labor Day picnics were originally for family and friends, but as interest in both the celebratory nature of the affairs, and the fife and drum music also, continued to expand, the scope of the outings changed to include a more regional audience, and finally in later years, a worldwide gathering.

The 1960s and 1970s saw interest from musical scholars in the fife and drum music of Turner’s locale, and recordings of his were made.  But alas, those recordings were not released.  Nonetheless, Turner’s fife and drum band, named Turner’s Rising Star Fife And Drum Band, forged ahead, with their primary places to play being at parties held at various nearby farms.  Though, like Turner’s performance at the 1994 Chicago Blues Festival decreed, those with an expansive knowledge of Turner’s music saw fit to ensure his fife and drum aggregation, and its unique music, had a broader exposure.

1992 was a major one for Turner, as he was bestowed the U.S.’s highest honor in the realm of folk and traditional arts; The National Heritage Fellowship honor. 

It took yet another roughly 20 years before Turner’s music and band began to garner greater acclaim.  Their music appeared on a couple of Arhoolie label Mississippi blues compilations, and they were able to record an album under their own name in 1993, while also providing support to a joint project with a roots music group in 1998.

The period between 1998 and 2003 was no doubt personally satisfying for Turner, and for fife and drum music also, as he had one of his songs included in Martin Scorsese’s 2002 major motion picture, Gangs Of New York.  Scorsese followed-up for Turner and fife and drum music by including Turner in his acclaimed 2003 The Blues mini-series, bringing an even wider awareness for this most deep form of black music, and its meld into the blues style. 

It must also be underscored that Turner, this most unique of black musical artists, was twice nominated for W.C Handy Blues Awards, once each in 2000 and 2003, for his lifelong devotion to the fife as his blues instrument of choice.

Subsequently, a Mississippi Blues Trail designation was placed in Como, Mississippi in 2009 in honor of Turner.  By then, he had been gone since 2003. 

While fife and drum music may not necessarily be the first music one thinks of when they think of the blues, if one is even aware of it at all (and hopefully this writing stirs a blues fan to perhaps seek it out), some may argue that is sits so outside the traditional blues musical format to even be called blues.  I will attempt to briefly address that argument.

Blues has always had, at its core, the black experience, going back, again, to the late 1800s.  Whether its form was one of call-and-response among field hands, sung lamentation devoid of instrumental backing, acoustic country blues stylings, or more modern-day formats, the most important element of the blues was not the instrument used or the time period.  Rather, it was the transference of the emotional component that was at the core of the expression, whether that demonstrative communication be one of mourning, yearning, the status quo, or celebration.

I’d argue that the fife and drum tradition, and that of Othar Turner’s music, has at its core the consciousness of blacks valuing their heritage, with all its influences and pressures, combined with the intense appreciation arising from that background; their collective strength through it all.  And, combined with Turner’s legacy of presenting his fife and drum music for many years at his storied picnics, how could his music not be blues; it celebrated the hardworking heritage of the northcentral Mississippi blacks and their perseverance.  This persistence to survive and celebrate is at the heart of the blues. 

I approached Turner after his band’s performance that Friday in 1994 to relay my sincere appreciation for his music, and coming to Chicago to share the fife and drum experience.  I found him to be a very humble and gracious person.  

In 1995, Turner opened the Chicago Festival by again leading his band in a celebratory walk through Grant Park.  It represented the beginning of yet another day of great blues, one which would not have been as eminent if not for the high spirits created by Turner’s efforts.  If was as if Turner’s call to joy and harmony were required to ensure all in attendance were properly primed for a collective festive experience.  Once again, they most definitely were.