The drums call. They roll and echo over hills and valleys of cotton and kudzu. They speak to a place inside us older than memory. Movement is almost
involuntary. The body remembers. Shouts and laughter, dancing. Then the air is split by a high, shrill melody, sweet as honeysuckle in the breeze. A fife and drum picnic. A calling thing. On a small farm in rural North-East Mississippi, between the towns of Senatobia and Como, exists one of America's last and most tangible links to its African musical past. It's here at country picnics in the community of Gravel Springs that Otha Turner still performs on the homemade cane fife as younger family members beat out African-based rhythms on drums, and members of the local community gather to dance, drink corn whiskey, and eat goat sandwiches just as they have for well over a century in this area. Otha Turner, known by friends as "Gabe", heads the last African-American fife and drum band in a region that once supported over a dozen such bands. And like the archangel of the same name, when Otha blows his instrument, it's a rallying cry linking the community to its ancestors.

Dancers yell "Blow it Gabe"as they encircle Otha and his drummers, moving in harmony as parts of a larger organism to the hypnotic rhythm of the drums. At age 92, Otha Turner is the undisputed patriarch and preserver of the African fife and drum tradition, the last actively performing fife player
with links to the art form's glory days. Turner is a serious man, physically as strong as men half his age and with an outwardly stern and powerful demeanor that garners respect from family and strangers alike. Raised by a no-nonsense single mother whose memory he frequently invokes, it's easy to see the origin of his tough exterior. To those meeting Turner for the first time, his presence can seem imposing. Beneath the sterness, however, is a gentle man who cares deeply about his family and community. One can't miss the twinkle in his eye as he shares a funny story and laughs using his whole body.

Turner owns his own small farm of 2 3/10's acres in the community of Gravel Springs that he bought in 1970 after a life of saving money from sharecropping and then renting. "Wasn't a thing here but a grass field," says Turner. "I bought it, cleared it, put in ditches, till I got it like I wanted it." Turner and his family raised corn, sweet potatoes, peas and cotton, which they picked by hand. For extra money, Turner used his mule team to cultivate land for other local farmers. He still raises a large garden and maintains his menagerie of horses, cows, pigs, goats, chickens and dogs. Between the plowing, cutting wood, clearing land and harsher aspects of a life spent laboring in the rural hill country for subsistence wages, there was always music.Turner started attending rural picnics in his teen years where he first encountered the distinctive African fife and drum music of the hills. He learned well from his elders and now stands as one of the last links to this unique and important musical tradition.

African-American fife and drum music can be traced back to British and early American military music. Thomas Jefferson's personal body servant even organized a small band to help rally the revolutionary war effort. But in the hands of slaves and their progeny, the stiff, formalized music used to direct military movements was transformed by the same African syncopations and poly-rhythms that eventually gave birth to jazz and blues. And in a time when drumming by slaves was strictly forbidden for fear of illicit communication, the fife and drum was an acceptable outlet, even used by confederate armies during the civil war. Today, the fife and drum music performed by the Turner family has more in common with the music of West Africa than the Spirit of '76. These musical ties are reinforced by the dancers, who "salute" the drums with pelvic movements not unlike traditional dances still seen in Africa, Haiti and the West Indies.

Folklorist Alan Lomax, who was the first to record fife and drum music in 1942, considers it one of his greatest discoveries in a lifetime of research. In his 1993 book, Land Where the Blues Began, he wrote: "in vaudou ceremonies, dancers make pelvic gestures toward the drum to honor the holy music that is inspiring them. I never expected to see this African behavior in the hills of Mississippi, just a few miles south of Memphis."

But far from being an obscure backwater art form, African fife and drum music has strong links to the blues."Keep in mind that the people in the Delta come from the hill country," says Dr. Sylvester Oliver, a folklorist from Rust College in nearby Holly Springs, MS. "If you talk to a lot of those old blues musicians who where in the Mississippi Delta, they will tell you their people come from the hill country." Fife and drum was always at the core of hill country music. Dr. Oliver notes that the rhythms and percussive drive of fife and drum music had a "strong influence" on the development of Hill Country blues guitar since most early bands performed fife and drum, string band music and/or blues depending on the occasion and desire of the audience.

The most famous guitarist typifying Hill country blues was Fred McDowell, who, beginning in the 60's, often left his home in Como to play festivals where he became the darling of the blues and folk revival circuit. The percussive, hypnotic beat of the fife and drum can also be heard in the guitar styles of Junior Kimbrough, Jessie Mae Hemphill and R.L. Burnside, all of whom grew up listening to or performing fife and drum music.

What follows is Otha Turner's story, told in his own words over several interviews at his home in Gravel Springs in August and September of 1998.

Nothing make a fail but a try

Now the first man that I heard blow a fice, started me, was R.E. Williams. He was a tall slim fellow. bright. We were farming. Come a rain it'd be too wet, couldn't pick no cotton. You could squeeze the water out of the cotton, but you couldn't pick no cotton. Started to rain, this is 12 o'clock.We was picking cotton, we quit that evening. Went on to the house. He was out there to the lot feeding his hogs. Fice in his pocket, he'd pull it out, he'd walk around there and blow, standing around and look at the hogs, he'd walk and blow.

I said "Mama!" "What?" "I hear that man blowing that thing, I want to go up there mama." She said, "You can't go boy." I said "Why mama?" She said, "You ain't got no business up there, you can't do nothing." I said "Mama please let me go up there, I want to see that man blow that thing." She said, "All right young man, I tell you what, I'm gonna let you go up there a little while and don't you stay long. Don't let me to meet you." I said, "No ma'am mama, you won't." I went flying, I run every step up there, I had to go. When I got up there, he's standing out there and I went on over. "Mr R.E.! What is that you blowing?" He said, "That's a fice son." I said, "A fice?" Well, I thought a fice was a dog. I said "Mr R.E., will you make me one of them things?" He said, "If you be smart and industrious and obey your mama and do what she tell you, I'll make you one." "Yes sir, I'm gonna be smart," and I was too.

About a month after that he called me, "Otha! Come here!" I run to the bank where he was. He had that fice and handed it to me, said "Here's your fice." I said, "THANK YOU! THANK YOU!" I said, "What's the price? What I need to pay you?" He said, "You don't owe me nothing." I said, "I sure do thank you." He said, "You ain't going to blow it". I said, "I'm gonna try." He said, "That's the best words you spoke, Don't nothing make a fail but a try, son. If you try and want to blow it, you gonna blow it, but if you never try, you never will blow it." I said, "Now that's true."

I got my fife, I was so glad man, I went home. "Look here Mama what he give me, see that? See that man give me my fice." "Yeah, I'm tired of that devilish thing, put it down. You can't blow no fice." I put it down. Every chance I got, [I played]. "I'm tired of that devilish thing. Catch you with it again, I'm gonna whoop your ass." When Mama leaves, I'd get that fice out, I'd be glad when she'd go off somewhere. [Imitates the sound of the fife with his mouth] "Ah be, be, ba, be, ah ba, be, ba, be," That's what I done, till I learned how to break it. When I learned how to note that cane, I said, "I got it now!" and I started. Learned it good.

That Otha Turner can really blow a cane

The old man they call Will Edwards, he was giving picnics just like I do. He said, you come up there this evening, we gonna barbecue. Start around about 1 o'clock. [He] had a race track where they raced horses too. He said "Come up there, I got some guys from over at Oxford, gonna play. I want you to see him." I said "Yes sir, yes sir" I went up there. He had the meat out of the barbecue pit, cooking the meat. Them guys coming down the road, they come and unloaded, stayed there and talked a while, got the cane out and chorded it, got the drum. I'm just standing there looking. Blowed the cane, commenced hitting the drum, I looked at that, snapping the snare."What you looking at?" I said "I'm looking at y'all playing them things." "You can't do that can you?" I I said, "No sir, but I'm gonna try." They laughed. Them son of a guns played around there down that aisle a time or two and come back and I said, "I wish I could do that." "What you looking at son?" 'I said I'm looking at y'all play them things." "Reckon you'll ever do it?" I say, "Yes sir".

One man said, "You know what? That boy taking that in, that boy gonna play a drum, you watch him." So the old man what was giving the picnic he talked about it. Said, "Otha, I want to try you on my drum, don't you bust it." "No sir! No sir!" He said, "I want to see if can you play it." His friend and another man was standing over there on the side said, "You know one thing Will? Let that boy play, that boy is liable to be the best one of your players." Said, "He's interested in what he wants to do. Don't cut him off, let him try it."I put that drum on, played that drum around there. Man said, "Listen at him now, I told you that." I done it too. He said, "Look son, you got a job." He said "You small and that's what I want." And man, I started playing a bass drum, what you talking about? And we went [to picnics] then in wagons. Put a lantern on the end of the wagon, it's lit. And we'd drive down the road and walk behind, leave before day. So if we see a car or something, they wouldn't run into us. I went all out below Sardis, nearly gone to Batesville, and we brought 'em all down there. We played, man, until night. We leave out sometimes at 11 o'clock, sometimes 10:30, where we were playing, going in the wagon. "Tell you right now that Otha Turner can really blow a cane, y'all, I don't see where in the hell they got him, I swear he right." I can blow when I feel it, I can blow, that's right.

You got to be faithful

You got to be faithful. I learned how to blow my pieces. And I learned how to blow spiritual songs now, on my cane. That's the way you blow a cane, You got to change up, more than one thing. Learn how to blow something that your fice will blow. I learned how to blow "My baby don't stand no cheating", nobody can tell me, I just heard it, said I'm gonna blow it. If you make it up in your mind, say, "I'm gonna blow this damn cane and blow it, I'm gonna make it break", and catch the sound the way you want to do, you can blow it all day. I sit here sometimes and I get my cane myself and call it. "I believe I try to see can I play this here." I get on that. You got to work enough to catch the beat in the hand, for it to go out. You got to know what beats to catch and blow that cane and work your fingers and sing. Yes sir. What notes you got up here in your head, that's what you blow. "Saints Go Marching In," "Glory Hallelujah, when I lay my burden down," "Old Blue jumped a rabbit, run him a solid mile, the rabbit tried to turn around and cried like a natural child," I can blow all that. But you got to have it up here [points to his head]. When you blow your cane, work your fingers.
[Mama would get] tired of the noise, she said I kicked up too much fuss. She was sick of it. "Every time I turn around, you got that devilish cane in your hand, and I'm tired of it. Put it down." I'd put it down. Every chance I'd get, I tried it. Old man told her, said, "Betty, let that boy alone. Someday that boy, he gonna surprise you. You cutting his stem off. Let him go and don't be scolding him about it. Cause one day he'll surprise you. You don't see it, but he do."

They say drums was a calling

How old it is? I don't know. They said it's African, back in African times, that's what they say, I don't know, I wasn't thought of. And they say drums was a calling. If a person ceased, and you carry them to the cemetery, loaded in the wagon, it was in wagons. And all them drums get behind them and marched, just like it was a hearse, and they brought them to the cemetery, playing the drums. That's what my grandparents and them all told me, I wasn't thought of. Just like they did Martin Luther King, all them wagons, that's the way they carried him. And back in them times they wasn't putting folks embalmed then. Like if a person died last night, and they got the news, all the people would come, the house be full of folks, till day light, sitting up. They washed that man, take an ironing board and put it on two chairs and fold his arms that a way and had him laying on that, and if he go to pussing, they'd go in there and get some salt and put some salt in him and put it across his mouth, keep that puss from coming up. That's the way they done. If he died last night, they'd bury him the next day. Yes sir, sure would, if he was sick, real sick now. Yeah. Man when a person died then, they didn't keep you out no three or four days, no.

I have heard of people [buried alive], but I ain't never seen that. But I've heard people say that. Say they've buried folks and they holler and they had to dig 'em up. I wouldn't have liked to have been there. Ooo. But I heard 'em say people have went off in a trance and you hear them knocking and going in there. I never seen that, but I've heard that. Sure have. And that's why they quit burying people so quick.

I ain't got no daddy

I was born down there in Rankin county. I was in my momma's arms when she had me down there. My momma and Daddy separated, I didn't know nothing about it, I was just born. Shore enough. When I [first] seen him he didn't know me and I didn't know him. I went back down to where she brought me from. They carried me back down there. I was about 3 or 4 years old. "I'm gonna carry
you back down there and let you see your folks." My auntie, my daddy's brother and all them. She said, "Otha." I said, "Ma'am." She said, "Here comes your daddy." I said, "Who?" She said, "Your daddy." "I ain't got no daddy." She says, "Yes you is." "That ain't none of my daddy." She said, "I know. That's your daddy coming there." We stopped. He asks, "Whose children's that?" She said, "Mine." "Where Rose at?" "There she standing right over there," that was my sister. He knowed that."Well where Otha?" Say, "There he is over there." "Come here boy. Pull your cap off." He said, "This boy got hair just like his uncle, well I'll be damned." He went to crying. ""And this my baby." She said, "Yeah, he was the baby when you left from here. And you ain't tried to help me raise them. Ain't done nothing for them." He cried, give me a mule and a saddle. I said, "I don't want it." That hurt him again then. "You gonna stay with me?" I said, "No, I ain't gonna stay down here." Didn't like it down there. Hell no.

I was born down there but my mother brought me out and I was raised back out East. I just didn't like it down there. Don't like it down there now. East of Canton looks just like old Delta land. Black stuff stick to your feet. But man, there used to be so many pines down there fella, you couldn't see. Takin' down the road just this a way and damn hootin owl hollering back over there, and I was scared down there.They wouldn't let us play outdoors too long. Something might get you out there and eat you.

That woman tore me up

[My momma] was heavy set and she was strong, had big muscles. And she told you, she could take a heap, but she'd say, "All right young man, I done got tired of this, I'm gonna work you over." Sometimes she'd tell you, "I'm going to hang you." I know what that means. That's "she gonna lynch your ass." [One night she said] "Well y'all, I reckon we better go to bed. We gonna get up in the morning, we going to church, it's Sunday." [I said], "I asin't sleepy." "Well, you'll get sleepy." Closed the front door for the night and I was mad. I slammed the door. Slap! Everything got quiet. I caught that old door handle, unlatched it and I eased it on open. Then I tipped out the door. Got my shoes, put them on. Went on out there and got that horse out of the thicket and jumped up on him.

The boy was going with me, we was youngsters, had to meet him over at L.P's, went through the woods. I rode my old horse over there. He said, "Where you been at? I been looking for you." I said, "Yeah man, I'm here." He got up on the stump and got up on the horse and we went on there to the supper that night. They's in there dancing and we was at the window peeping in. It was a house party. I said, "Look there man, how she's twisting it." She was twisting boy. And he said, "Yeah, looky there, that one is mine." "This one's mine over here." Boy they was twisting their ass, I'm telling you right now. It got late, I said, "Hey man, us better go." I went in and bought a nickel stick of candy, broke it half in two and give him half of it.

We got over to his house, I hooked my horse to a big old Walnut tree there, went on in the house, in his room. Sat down in there, me and him was talking, eating candy and laying back on the bed, eating. The girl I was liking, she was over in the other room. I sure did want to see her bad. I used to be around her, I liked her. Then something woke me, I jumped. Chicken was crowing for day. I said "Hey man, it's day! Chicken crowing for day! I got to go, I got to go!" He jumped up, "Shore is." I run out there, said, "Hey man, hey man, my horse done got loose!" "What?" "I said my horse done got loose! I got to go." I run outdoors, I didn't see my horse, I run, I looked everywhere, couldn't find him. I got down on the ground and crawled. I found his tracks, I'd start out to running, I'd run again. Lose his tracks, I'd find them again, I'd get down and run again. When I got home, that damn horse had been there.

I come out from under the hill, momma standing in the back door. "OTHA!" She turned around and went back on in the house. I said, "God dawg!" I got in the ditch below the house behind the thicket just a running. Run on up there to the house, across the thicket, got in the ditch, come up in back of the barn. Rose standing there, my sister. "You stole that horse, momma seen it." I said, "I ain't studying you, you nappy-headed dog, you." She said, "I'm going to tell momma." "MOMMA! Otha called me a nappy-headed dog!" She said, "That's all right, I'm going to pay him for that too. Where in the name of God have you been?" "I been out there looking for the calf." She said, "You a liar, that calf been laying there. That calf was there when I got up. The horse there, what is he doing outside?" I was standing there looking. Little piece of chain around his neck about that long. Old chain weak, it broke.

She said, "Young man, when I get through with you, you ain't gonna steal another horse. You hear me?" The man what we stay with, working, that was his horse. I didn't ask him for it, I had to steal it. I didn't ask him nothing. She told me, said, "Young man, I know you went out of this house," she said, "I missed you and I got up and went in there and looked. You were gone." She said, "The Lord showed that to me." She said, "All right, what I'm showing you. You stole that man's horse that wasn't none of my horse." Said, "Supposing somebody had killed that horse and run into that horse? I would have had the horse to pay and it could've killed you." She said, "That' s the reason I'm gonna whoop you." She said, "All right get your work through with." Well, I done fed the hogs, milked the cow, come back and had my breakfast. I thought she done forgot about it. Got through.

"Well, Otha, you can get ready, I reckon we gonna get this over." I said, "What momma?" She said "I'm fixing to whoop you." I said, "Lord have mercy momma, please don't whoop me." She said, "'Yeah, I'm gonna whoop you. I'm gonna tear your ass up." She went out there and got one of them plow lines laying up under the house, dew done leaked out on it. Took that plow line, doubled a piece of it and had it in her hand, and every time she'd do that [makes swatting motion]. Told me to get down on my knees, woooo, that woman tore me up. Welts was on my back big as my little finger. And I was hollering, "Momma, momma, momma, momma!" I got away. Made her mad and she run into me and knocked me down. Got me straddle between her, and boy she was tearing my
ass up. I got loose and I run. Under the house I went. Stayed in there half a day, just watching. Rose said, "He up under here momma, he ain't come out." [laughs] Wasn't no need of studying coming out cause I wasn't coming out.

She didn't know when I come out. I slipped out from under that house and went out on the side and went to my boss man's house, the one what owned the horse. I went up there, I was hurting. They said, "What's the matter with you?" I said, "Momma whipped me." Pulled down and there was blood whelps on me. He said, "What the hell she whip you that a way for?" I said, "About riding old 'D'." "That damn horse? If you hurt the son of a bitch, it wasn't worth that, wouldn't have been nothing lost. Your momma whooped you? Dammit, come on, I'm gonna carry you back to her."

He put me up on the mule behind him and carried me back and called her out to the door. "What in the hell you doing whooping this boy this a way?" "I whooped him, he's mine, and I'm gonna break him. He stole that horse out there." "If the damn horse had been killed, there wouldn't have been nothing lost. He ain't worth a damn, old horse. I didn't care." He said, "Now, you know I can make you pay for whooping that boy that a way." She said, "Naw, not mine..." He said, ""Yes I can. I can make you pay for whooping that boy." He said, ""I don't like it a damn bit. You didn't have to whoop that boy about that old horse that a way." "Yeah, but I'm breaking him for stealing. Yes sir, if he do it again, I'm gonna tear him up. And get your ass down off that mule!"

I sat there. "I said get down!" "You ain't gonna get down?" I sat. "No." He said, "And you ain't gonna take him down." I went on back home with that man, stayed all night with him, went to the field that Monday morning, right by the house and they was all out there. Dinner time I come back and ate dinner at they house. He sat down and talked to me, he said, "Well son, I thinks a heap of you, you a good boy, you're smart." That was my problem, I was smart. He said, "That horse ain't worth you getting in trouble." He said, "Your momma whooped you too hard, I don't like it a bit. I don't. You better than the horse is to me.But what I want you to see, your momma birthed you to the world, she raised you. Listen at her, I ain't trying to pull you off. One day you may need it. So, come on, let me carry you back to the house."

He carried me. I got out. She talked to me, I went to crying. She said, "See that now, I'm your momma, I do more for you than anybody." She said, "I love you, I don't want to whoop you, but I don't want you to come up any kind of way. And I don't want folks talking about you." She said, "Now somebody could run over that old horse and killed the horse and you too. Could have went to shooting or something." She got through with me, I was crying just like she whooped me. And I didn't do it no more neither. Sure didn't. I didn't do it no more.

Take that axe, split the storm

It used to come up a storm, cyclone, whole tree root and all would come up. Trees twisted off, blow houses down, blow the tops off. They tell me you can take an axe and go out and hit it on the back and turn the blade up, they say that splits the storm. Just like the wind is thundering and lightning,
storm's coming, youhear that wind a roaring. You can go out there and take that axe, talking about the one with the one blade, and draw it back and hit it in the ground, flat of its back and it'll stick up. It'll cease down, look like it'll quieten down.

I seen my momma do that when I was a boy. She'd go out there and them dark clouds was raining, lightning and thunder. She'd go out there and take the axe and I'd say, "What you did momma?" She said, "I done split the clouds son. They say it will." I was standing back and looking. "Y'all be quiet now, y'all be quiet," and we'd be good. Sure did, yes sir. Fasten the door. Sometimes that wind hit that door and lightning would pop, "Wow! wububu." "Y'all get down and sit down!" We'd all sit down.

I remember one night man, we were all sitting out in the yard laughing and talking, it was thundering way back North. She said, "Lord I believe it's gonna be a storm, I hope it don't come." "What is it mamma?" "Don't y'all hear that thunder? It's way back in the North. It's gonna be a tornado tonight." "How it gonna be momma?" I could make her mad, asking her questions. "Y'all got to be quiet when the Lord is working." That's what us do.

Man, we sat there "'woooOOOOOOO" then a high pop. "POP!" I jumped, she said, "hush hush," I didn't know what was happening. In a few minutes man, I heard something "BLAALAALAA." Wanted to go outdoors, but we couldn't go. It done blowed the top off our barn. There was a cow in there, a young cow we were looking for her to come any day. And she came in that same night, and all the top of that barn blowed off. And that cow was up under and that calf. She had that calf that night. I went out there and said, "Mamma, cow's got a pretty little old calf." She said, "Yeah, thank god" sure did. Storms don't be like they used to be. There used to be some storms, man, what you talking about?

Plant on a growing moon

Old people had the sign, they might near right too. yes sir. I lived with a white man once, he was a farming man. He said, "Look son, y'all go to the end and come back." We'd drive down to the end and come back. That started on a Friday."Don't never start if you couldn't finish on a Friday," he said, "it's bad luck, don't start it on a Friday and don't finish." Boy we'd be tired, but we had to do it.

He told me something and I watched that, if you plant corn on a growing moon or Irish potato it naturally would do. It'll grow TALL. You plant it on the young moon. It'll be just like a knife blade, a growing moon. People tell me something, I go by that.

I planted some watermelon. They said, "You ain't gonna make no watermelon." I said, "I know damn well why I ain't gonna make 'em with the seeds in my pocket. Plant 'em on the ground." They said, "Watch and see young man, go ahead and plant em. You ain't gonna make no watermelon." [laughs] I got me a pretty watermelon patch, boy them watermelon's come up just as pretty and green, I said, "Shit, talking about I ain't gonna make no watermelon, they don't know what they talking about." I went back out there in two or three days, fella, wasn't nothing there but the stems. I said, "Look a HERE!" Wasn't nothing there but the stem and them damn bugs was crawling around on the ground around there. That's right.You plant the watermelon on a bug day, partner you can hang it up. Bug gonna eat em up! yes sir. Plant em on a bloom day, plenty blooms! and no watermelon. Yes sir, I've tried it. And breeding is the same thing. You want a filly colt from a mare, breed her early in the morning, get a filly colt. Breed her in the evening, gonna be a stud colt. I tried that.

I could sing so good, my mules would turn they head walking

Yeah, yeah. I used to sing about "the sun going down, it done got lonesome, Where were you when the rooster crowed for day, I wasn't at home, but I was sure Lord on my way." I used to holler that flying, walking along behind a mule. That's the only way I could sing. I'd get out there and get to working. Get behind him, get to walking up and down them rows, that's the only time you can sing. When you go to work out there working, the blues come to you. That's when you sing. But just sitting here like this, I can't sing the blues.

But if I'm out there in that field, walking up and down that field plowing behind a mule horse, I can make it interesting, yes sir. You'd stop and listen at me too. yeah. And good music get to playing sometimes, I'd get me a swallow of something, make me feel good. I drop down on it, yeah, sure will. But there ain't nothing worse than playing the music, you don't have nothing in you, just sitting here playing a guitar. Just playing, don't know where going, don't know what you saying. Uh uh, no. I want you to say something that's gonna tell me, "UH! HUH!" That sounds better, sure do.

Back in my day it'd get over in the evening about this time, I could sing so good my mules would turn they head walking. I ain't lying to you. I start on the blues and that mule be walking along this way, that's what they be doing. I'd say, "Whoa!" and "Get there, Gee!" That's all I'd tell em, they'd come right back. "Straighten up y'all ladies". That's the way they be going, I'd be singing.
My wife liked to hear me singing.You heard me sing in them times and you would have liked it yourself. Might have said, "That damn nigger sings! I want to see who he is. You the man?" I say "Yeah." "I tell you right now, that damn nigger ought to be blue in face as good as he sings, he's a bad son of a bitch." [laughs]

I hitched up my mule late over in the evening, get to flying, going down through that field. He was walking just right for me. "EEE, get over there" I don't want no woman, boys if her hair ain't no longer than mine "EEEE, get over there now."I don't want no woman, boys if her hair ain't no longer than mine Yeah she give me so much trouble, she keep me buying rats all the time WHOA I woke up this morning, um hmmm [slaps the mule] Just about the break of day. Look back on that pillow at that rat WHEEERE my baby used to lay, I don't want no... "WHOA Rodney, get over there, damn it!" boys if her hair ain't no longer than mine. "What you say Otha? I hear you over there Godammit!" I said, "Nothing" "Git up!" [laughs] That's right! Well she gives me so much trouble, she keeps me buying rats all the timewalk on. I don't want no woman, boys if her hair ain't no longer than mine. I don't want no woman, if her hair ain't no longer than mine. She give me so much trouble, she keep me buying rats all the time.

That's right. bad. shake my head.That mule had the blues. I know one thing, they get sad about that time of day, plowing them mules. Better not be nobody that can sing, the wind coming down the valley up on the hill. Just walk along, tears falling all down by his foot, boy. You don't know where she at.

WEELLL! you remember that day black womaaan.
Oh lord you drove me from your door
OHHH, you mistreated me babyyyy,
Oh lord without a cause.
WHOOOAAA! I wouldn't have been here babyyyy
If it hadn't have been for you
You done mistreated me babyyy
Oh lord on account of you
AW mule you mother...uh uh uh [Otha catches himself] I liked to have said it
Whoa horse! [laughs]

But when I was running around before I settled down, you know. Kept a good saddle horse. I jump straddle that horse, man, some nights, Saturday night I'd leave or Friday night you could hear me look like as far as L.P.'s [L.P. Buford's store] or somewhere. And he'd be going just like I want him to. I seen 'em pop their windows sometimes, slide their windows back, people open the windows and listen at me. "Otha why was you singing so lonesome last night? Wasn't none of your people dead was it? I heard you." I said, "No, I don't know." "You had devilment on your mind." I said, "You damn right." Thinking about that woman that told me a lie that night. [laughs heartily] "I heard you, I heard you!" I said, "Uh-huh, you got to give God your heart and you know what else to me don't you?" [laughs] Cause I'm gonna walk with it.

They calls him Shake'em on Down

I got acquainted with Fred [McDowell], I think if I make no mistake it was in the 60's, somewhere along in there. Old man they called Mose Simmons, he wanted a wage hand. He hired Fred. And I kept a hearing them talk about, "There's a man over there at Mose Simmons', he can really play a guitar. They calls him Shake'em on Down."

I heard him play back over here in Panola, they gave a picnic out in the field on a hill in a pasture. There was a great big sassafras thicket and they had cut it all out and it was just like a house, cool in there man. And that evening they told me, "Shake'em on Down gonna play down there." They had some drums too. He was bare headed, hair slicked back, didn't have no hat on. Tuning his
guitar, sitting there. He throwed his head, commenced to sing, shaking his head like that and boy, he went to running them strings, folks was hollering. His sister could put a comb in a paper and fold it and you'd swear she was playing a fiddle.

Womens and mens was crazy about Fred, and Fred could get any damn woman he wanted. When that son of a bitch would get to singing, got sharp and got to playing that guitar, they get to talking, "Play it Baby!" Women coming there, "Play it Baby!" Throw their hands up, "Yeah play it!" Them son of a guns there had dust kicking up just like a cyclone went through there. And everybody wanted to hear him. They'd hire him to go in a place, there about 5 or 6 o'clock that evening with a guitar hanging around his neck. God dog, that son of a gun get over there, start patting his foot and get to breaking down on them blues. Man, "I woke up this morning, laying down on the floor," that guitar saying everything he say . There wasn't no adding to it,he'd make it say it. And run them strings and smack that guitar, "Now play it Fred" [laughs] That son of a gun, man, I can just see him. He was right , fella. He was right . "Play it Fred. Hey! Play it Shake'em HEY! baby". Rock this Sunday, start the people up next morning. yes sir.

I said, "This a bad man here." So I went and got him one night. Brought him to my house to play, everybody was bragging, he would just make that guitar talk, and run them strings just like it was somebody trembling. "Otha you sure had a good party. Who was that man?" I said, "Fred McDowell." So me and him got to be friends, got to be buddies.I'd hitch my buggy. I had a black buggy and a red horse and he'd tell me, "I want to go to such and such a place. You gonna be tied up?" I said, "What you want?" He said, "I'm gonna go over there and play awhile." I said, "I'll go." I'd hitch that horse up at first dark and drive him up there to the gate and tie her. Come out and get in that buggy and we had a lap rug and pull it up over your lap. Me and him would drive. Get to the place, get out and hitch that horse and go in there. That nigger had them folks jumping. We'd play
till crack of day, sometimes the sun be got red back yonder. And he and I just playing, laughing and talking and drinking fella.

But the way I see it, [blues singers] don't last that long. They kill they selves. Might near all good blues singers, he drinks heavy. And don't eat nothing. They just drink, drink, and that's against them. If you eat when you drinking, your whiskey got something to eat on. But if you don't, that whiskey just laying on your flesh. Fred McDowell was a good a man, box player, but that son of a gun wasn't going to play until he got high. Whiskey didn't kill him, but it give him that cancer. Doctor told him if he wanted to live, stop drinking. And I told him, right down at L.P.'s one Sunday, I had some white whiskey. He said, "Otha! I wants me a damn drink of whiskey, cause its so damn bad. You got any whiskey?" I said, "You said the doctor told you to stop." He said, "Look. I just as soon to die drinking, damn it, as anything else. And I want it and I'm gonna drink it" I said, "OK." Fred drunk that whiskey and went on just about two weeks. "Yeah, Fred in the hospital, I heard he had a bleeding ulcer." I said, "WHAT? aw shit" That was it. Doctor say he done drunk till he ain't gonna make it. He had that cancer. He didn't make it either. Fred McDowell was a good man, a good musician, and that's what killed him.

The conjurer

A warm day in September. Otha is tending a small fire of wood scraps in an old metal dairy basket. He pulls a heated rod from the fire with a rag and steadies thehot tip against a length of riverbotton cane, pressing down. Fingers of smoke rise and the metal rod slowly melts it's way through the cane, leaving a perfectly-round hole with a blackened ring."There's some art in it if you watch it close. It looks easy but it sure in the hell ain't," says Turner as he stops to light a hand-rolled cigarette and wait for the other irons to get hot. "[People say] 'Oh, I can do that.' Yeah, you shore can. But mine's talking."

Otha carefully selects his canes from bottom land on his farm, hangs them in the shade to dry for several months, and then cuts them into 18 inch lengths, about a joint and a half of cane length. He first burns the blow hole. Then he grips the cane length-wise and inserts the rod, burning out the inside joint. As the hot metal cuts through, a small plume of smoke rises from the blow hole, like a trapped genie emerging from it's slumber. But the only conjurer here is Otha, who transforms this simple peice of cane into an instrument older than history itself. He finishes burning the finger holes and raises the cane to his lips, licking the blow hole which still tastes of fire and smoke.

Otha closes his eyes and his fingers begin their dance on the end of the fife, like Pan himself on a woodland romp. The sound rises high and shrill, then glides back on notes clear as glass. The melody is cyclical, hypnotic, ephemeral as smoke. The ancestors are brought forth once more. The circle is made complete. A calling thing.

©2000 Bill Steber